Minuet
by MegaBadBunny
Summary: "Rude," says Rose, but she laughs. She squeezes his other hand, the one leading them around the ballroom along with the rest of the courtiers. "It's been five and a half months, and that's all you've got to say to me?" (This version sfw but rated teen for language; ao3/tumblr/teaspoon version eventually nsfw)
1. the introduction

Before, she would have jumped at the sudden and unexpected pressure of someone's hand on her waist, but nearly half a year in an 18th-century French court has taught Rose to adapt, if nothing else. (Her French is as abysmal as it ever was without the help of the TARDIS, but the court is graciously willing to overlook such things on behalf of the savior of their uncrowned queen.)

Still, Rose smiles as she dances, even if her partner can't see it. "Someone's awfully familiar today," she teases (in mutilated French); probably it's Henri, a little tipsy from the king's finest wine, but he's not half-bad to look at. "Feeling a bit grabby, are we?"

"Oh, you know me," replies a soft voice behind her, in _English_ , and it's all Rose can do to stop herself tripping over her own feet. "I'm a hands-on learner."

Rose's heart leaps in her chest, hammering madly against her ribcage in time to the music and the steps of her feet below. Over a hundred days since she last heard that voice anywhere but her dreams; of course, she recognizes it instantly. Her grin is so wide now her face could almost split with the size of it. She squeezes her eyes shut, giving silent thanks to any gods that might be listening.

(The impulse to stop in her tracks pulls at her, demanding her to spin and throw her arms around his neck and maybe never let go, but some part of her is afraid to—maybe she's wrong, maybe it isn't him, or it's a dream, or if she looks at him, she'll break the spell. So she keeps dancing.)

"And?" Rose prompts, insinuating her hand over his where it rests against her waist. "What have you learned?"

"That your French is atrocious."

"Rude," says Rose, but she laughs. She squeezes his other hand, the one leading them around the ballroom along with the rest of the courtiers. "It's been five and a half months, and that's all you've got to say to me?"

His grip on her waist tightens. "No, actually, it isn't."

"Aww, did you miss me?"

"Do you know the kind of trouble you could have gotten into?" he asks, his voice suddenly curt. "The damage you could have caused? _Probably_ caused?"

His sharpness startles her, but Rose shrugs it off. "Don't worry, I didn't—"

"You have no _idea_ what you did or didn't do," he hisses. "Weakening the integrity of this timeline, exposing everyone to the possibility of Reapers, compromising the safety of everyone here—"

"You mean Reinette," Rose replies coolly.

"She's part of _everyone here_ , isn't she? Or are you so thick that I have to spell that out for you, too?"

Rose laughs again, but the sound is shaky and thin this time, a scoff. "Why, hello, Doctor, it's nice to see you too! Don't ask about me, thanks, I've been doing just fine in the land of scratchy underwear and no plumbing."

"I told you what would happen if that time window was smashed, Rose," he continues as if he didn't hear her; he's so quiet Rose can barely hear him over the flutes and harpsichord and drums, but she can still make out the strain in his voice, the bite to it. "I was very explicit. I couldn't have been clearer. So I'm struggling to understand—and that's quite a feat, struggling to understand something with a brain as impressive as mine—why the hell you thought jumping through that window was a good idea."

Twisting in his grasp, Rose cranes her neck to look at him, _finally_ , and there he is, all furrowed brow and tight mouth and eyes glittering with anger, and god, if she wasn't so irritated with him right now, she just might kiss him.

"That's what you were going to do, isn't it?" she asks instead.


	2. the common form

Eyes widening, the Doctor only has a moment to let his mouth drop open in surprise before another gentleman steps in—time to change dance partners. Rose slips into position with the newcomer without so much as a blink or even a glance in the Doctor's direction, never faltering in her rhythm; a quick peek at the Doctor moments later tells her that he has allowed himself to be swept up in the tide of dancers, sidling up to his new partner across the room.

Rose turns away, swirling in her partner's arms, but she can feel the eyes of the Doctor boring into her. She shivers despite the summer heat.

"That's beside the point," he whispers when they meet again, touching palm-to-palm first with one hand, then the other. "I'm a Time Lord."

"Really? First I've heard of it," Rose replies drily.

"I've been doing this for a long time, Rose. A very long time. I understand the risks."

Rose rolls her eyes. "And stupid apes don't."

At least the Doctor has the decency to flinch at those words. "That isn't what I meant."

"Of course it is," Rose sighs, and they both step back, granting a berth for other dancers to flit gracefully between them. "After all," Rose continues when they reconnect, hands clasped, "I'm hardly _one of the most accomplished women who ever lived_ , am I?"

Anger yields briefly to confusion, and the Doctor frowns. "What?"

"It's all right, Doctor—well, no, it's not all right, it's actually sort of disappointing," Rose admits. "But I've had a lot of time to think about it, not to mention I've spent loads of time with Reinette. She's pretty fantastic, actually. Did you know she's personally acquainted with Voltaire? He wrote in her salon, she influenced some of his best work."

Rose chuckles quietly to herself. "Who am I kidding? Of course you knew that.

"You know, we didn't get on that well at first," she continues, smiling as the two of them glide around the room, Rose's skirts swishing and flicking about her ankles. "She thought I was sort of uncultured, and I thought she was a fancy poncy git with her head stuck up her gold-gilded arse. But she helped me anyway. Absolutely heaped praise on me after I stopped those androids—all I did was talk to 'em, but she was grateful anyway! She could've just chucked me out on the street when all that was over—god knows that's what some people wanted, they didn't like the idea of this weird English girl in their court and they were pretty loud about it—but Reinette wouldn't hear of it, stood up to 'em like it was nothing. She stuck up for me, smoothed things over with everyone, talked the other ladies-in-waiting into showing me the ropes around here. Even got me some land and a title so I could be at court properly. I'm the _Marquise de Powell_ now. Never thought I'd have a title, growing up on the Estate. Now I've got two! What'll Mum think?"

The Doctor is silent, the expression on his face inscrutable. Rose fights not to squirm beneath his gaze.

"Anyway," she says, her voice softening. "Reinette really is remarkable. It's no wonder you were willing to do all that for her. She'd be well worth it even if she wasn't so important to history."

"Well worth what?"

"You know," says Rose, and she twirls along with all of the other women in the court in a flurry of skirts and silk. The men all draw their partners in, and is Rose imagining it, or does the Doctor pull her just a little closer than all the rest?

"Getting stuck," she says finally. "Trapped without the TARDIS. Reinette would be worth it. You two are a great match."

The Doctor's jaw tenses, his lips pressing together as if fighting to keep his words inside. Her steps faltering, Rose doesn't even realize the Doctor has stopped dead in his tracks until his hands tighten around her waist—a reflexive move to stop her from tumbling to the floor. But he doesn't say anything; he just glares. When another gentleman steps in for the next partner change, the Doctor's eyes flash and before Rose knows it, his fingers have wrapped around her wrist so he can pull her away from the crowd.

"What—"

Concentration swallows the rest of Rose's words as she trips over her skirts, dodges a dancer in the outer line, apologizes for bumping into a servant hovering at the periphery of the ballroom. But the Doctor doesn't let up his pace; if anything, he strides more purposefully, leading Rose away from the noise and light of the court down the dark and quiet corridor beyond.

"What are you doing?" Rose tries again when they're alone.  
"Taking you home," is his curt reply.

"You mean the TARDIS."

"No."

Rose's blood freezes in her veins. Now it's her turn to halt in her tracks. She yanks her wrist out of the Doctor's grasp, stumbling back in disbelief.

He doesn't turn around. Doesn't look at her.

(Just as well, really; she doesn't want him to see the look of horror plastered across her face.)

"Sorry," says Rose, once she can find her voice again. "Sorry, I think I misheard you just now. Sort of sounded like you said you were gonna send me back home."

He doesn't reply.

Rose swallows. "No," she says, willing her words not to quaver and shake. "No, you don't get to do that to me. I get a say in this. I didn't jump through that mirror and strand myself in the fucking Renaissance for half a year just so you could drop me like a sack of moldy potatoes or strand me in bloody Aberdeen!"

"Why did you do it?" the Doctor asks quietly, his fists clenching at his sides as his shoulders knit themselves into a harsh line. He's all angles and edges now, sharp and brittle and ready to puncture. Rose tries to remember the last time she saw him like this, realizes it was back when he was a different man, all black leather and marble-schooled features.

Even though he can't see it, Rose shrugs. "Somebody had to fix history!"

"Didn't have to be you."

"Who else was it gonna be? Couldn't be Mickey—he hasn't been doing this long enough. Besides, his French is even worse than mine."

"It was supposed to be me," the Doctor says sharply, turning to face her.

"Yeah, and then what would Mickey and I have done?" Rose asks. "Just sat on that spaceship for god knows how long, surrounded by all those dead bodies? Activate Emergency Program One and just leave you stranded three thousand years in the past?"

"You really don't think I would have made it back to you?"

"Maybe with Reinette here, you wouldn't have even tried."

The Doctor rolls his eyes. "Don't be stupid."

"Wow," Rose breathes, crossing her arms snugly across her middle. She tells herself the pain in her chest is just the corset, wringing all of the air out of her after the dance; either way, it feels like all of the oxygen has left the room. "I mean, it's not like I expected an award or a kiss or a prize or anything, but a thank you would have been nice, or at least a hug. I haven't seen you in months."

"Which wouldn't have happened if _you_ ," the Doctor bites back, pointing an accusatory finger at her, "hadn't acted so recklessly."

"I mean, I'm sorry I ruined your chance to play hero or whatever, but would it kill you to act like I did a good job here?" Rose asks. "It's not like I did anything you wouldn't do, but you stomp in here, all anger and nastiness and Oncoming Storm like I twisted a bunch of timelines together or chipped the paint on the TARDIS. I don't know, maybe half a year doesn't seem that long to you, certainly not long enough to care about."

"Now, that's not fair—I never said—"

"Yeah, I bet you were just gnawing off your fingernails with concern," Rose snaps. "You know, if you were really that worried, there are better ways to show it."

The Doctor's eyes avert from hers, his gaze falling heavily to the floor. Silence falls around them, so thick Rose could almost touch it. When the Doctor doesn't respond, doesn't move, doesn't even seem to breathe, for several endless moments, Rose starts to wonder what could have gotten into him.

Then she realizes.

"Oh," she says softly, an epiphany slowly blossoming through her thoughts. "Maybe you were really that worried."

"We should go," the Doctor mutters, turning on his heel.

Stunned, Rose can't summon the words to argue with him— _Please don't take me home, at least let me say goodbye to my friends first, please just talk to me, please_ —they all just drift around uselessly, unable to climb their way out of her throat.

Silently, she follows after him.


	3. the presenting of the right arm

The first thing Rose hears upon setting foot in the TARDIS is the sound of her own name, nearly lost amidst the full solid weight of Mickey barreling into her like a freight train.

"Oh my god, I can't believe it, I thought you'd never make it back!" Mickey half-laughs, half-shouts into her ear. His arms wind snugly around her, a pair of friendly boa constrictors squeezing her in happiness. Rose hugs him back just as tightly, barely managing to blink back tears; she didn't expect to cry right now, but god, it just feels so comfortable and warm, and it's been so long since anyone _hugged_ her.

"The Doctor said all the links were severed when you when through the mirror," Mickey continues. "He said it was impossible, he said—"

Suddenly Mickey steps back, his nose scrunched in confusion. "Hang on," he says, holding Rose at arms' length while he looks her up and down, eyes traveling over her coiffed hair, her heavy silken gown. "Wow. You look different."

"Wow," Rose teases. "You don't."

"Well, it's only been a few hours for me—what about you?"

"About six months."

Mickey's face darkens, his eyes flickering over to the Doctor. "Six _months_?"

"Yep, looks like my calculations were a bit off," the Doctor says, his voice tight as he breezes past them up the ramp. He rounds the console, tossing a switch here, a lever there. "Well, to be fair, it's less to do with my calculations, more to do with an unstable time window—difficult to predict, those, especially when they're in such a sad state of disrepair. But luckily for us," he says, and his gaze very carefully avoids Rose at that last word, "there was a loose connection."

The TARDIS shudders around them as it dematerializes, and Rose closes her eyes at the sound of the time rotor grinding, the still-familiar _vworp-vworp_ noise and the soft and gentle buzz-hum underneath. She places a hand against a coral strut, relishing the sandpaper-roughness beneath her fingers, and this time she doesn't fight the tear that trickles down her cheek. It's as if a hole was gnawing away in her chest over the last half-year, no matter how she tried to ignore it, but now it's filling in again. Good grief, but she's missed these sounds, this place.

"So that's that," the Doctor says, as if it's final, somehow. Rose opens her eyes to find him galloping down the ramp, striding out of the console room. "End of one chapter, beginning of another. Welcome back to the TARDIS!" the Doctor shouts over his shoulder.

And just like that, he's gone.

"Huh," says Mickey, watching the Doctor's retreating form. "That's weird."

"What's weird?"

"I dunno. I guess I expected him to, like, run in here holding your hand and babbling about all your adventures or professing his eternal love or something."

Rose laughs, and it's only a little sarcastic. "Yeah, right. Me too."

"I'm serious." Mickey glances both ways before leaning in closer, his voice lower now, as if he fears being overheard. "He wasn't half-mad while you were gone. He was downright manic. It was all _sonic_ this and _reverse the polarity_ that and _maybe I'll check some timey-wimey-whosie-whatsit_ and _what if I could punch a hole in the local space-time continuum without compromising the fabric of reality_ and blah blah blah, just a bunch of muttering to himself while he ran around the TARDIS and pulled at his hair."

Running a hand over his own hair, Mickey shudders. "It's a wonder he didn't yank it all out."

"Yeah, well," Rose replies, fidgeting uncomfortably. "Maintaining the timelines and all that's sort of stressful, I guess."

"It was almost scary, the look in his eyes," Mickey continues, crossing his arms over his chest, protecting himself against the memory. "Like he was a wounded animal or something—you know how they get in the movies, like when they're cornered, but they've got nothing to lose, nothing left in 'em but the fight, and then everything goes to hell? It was just like that. He couldn't see or hear anything in front of him, couldn't think about anything that wasn't you."

Something sickly bubbles up in Rose's stomach, weighing heavily at the pit of it, and she has a sinking suspicion it's got nothing to do with the corset cinched around her waist. She can picture the Doctor just as Mickey described him, stalking about the console room, alternately muttering under his breath and shouting at the top of his lungs, his frame shaking with the effort to contain the desperate energy inside. She imagines the way his hands would fist in his hair and his mouth would contort in a grimace, his eyes scanning frantically over everything while his mind raced through nearly a thousand years' worth of memories and facts and tricks and hints. Rose has seen it all before, when they're trapped at the end of the line, no way out, the fate of a life or a town or a planet or a galaxy weighing on the Doctor's shoulders.

(She has never seen him act this way because of her.)

"Anyway," says Mickey, snapping out of his reverie, "Glad that's done with. Bloody terrifying, that was. Not to mention exhausting. Feels like I haven't slept in days."

He punches Rose lightly in the arm. "What about you, though? How've you been? Six months, that's impressive. Probably got a whole truckload of new stories to tell, yeah?"

Distantly, Rose hears everything coming out of Mickey's mouth, but for some reason, she can't seem to focus on it, much less discern any meaning. She can't stop her gaze from wandering over to the corridor where the Doctor disappeared, twisting her hands together while her teeth sink into her lower lip.

"So, you gonna go after him, or what?"

Rose blinks. "Sorry?"

Mickey offers her a wistful grin. "You waited for him all that time, didn't even know if he'd find you again—but you still love him, don't you?"

Rose can't find the words to reply, but really, she doesn't need to; her silence seems to tell Mickey everything he needs to know.

"You know he's not good enough for you, right?" Mickey chuckles. "You deserve better."

Smiling, Rose wraps her arms around Mickey in a tight hug, pecking a kiss on his cheek afterward for good measure. "So do you."

"Don't I know it. Now run your arse over there so I can go get some sleep!"

Rose doesn't try to find the Doctor straightaway. Instead, she takes her time, wandering through the halls of the TARDIS. She kicks off her heels and sighs in relief, delights in the coolness of the floor beneath her aching feet, one hand running along the wall as she walks. Its pebbly surface rasps against her fingertips until they're pleasantly numb—she imagines it's like a series of little kisses from the TARDIS, welcoming her back.

"Glad to have your wolf again, hmm?" she asks quietly, and maybe she's just imagining things again, but she can almost feel the hum shifting in the back of her head, its pitch changing ever-so-briefly, like a little flash of golden happiness in her skull. Grinning, Rose pats the wall. "Missed you too," she whispers.

She thinks of stopping by her room. This dress isn't getting any more comfortable, after all, and a hot shower or relaxing bubble bath sounds absolutely _divine_. But that sick feeling still burbles in her stomach, and Rose knows that no amount of scalding water or fruity soaps will drive it away.

Rose could play dumb, if she wanted, checking the garden or the pool or the galley or any other room first, to buy herself some time, to rehearse her words in her head, but she knows exactly where the Doctor is, and she allows her feet to carry her there.

She finds him, of course, in the library.

Evidence strewn about the coffee table in front of the settee suggests that the Doctor must have been tinkering, books and papers and tools and sonic screwdriver all piled atop each other in a miniature mountainous landscape. Amidst everything else is a small globe of some sort— _astrolabe_ is the word that comes to Rose's mind, except that she doesn't actually have a clue what an astrolabe is, or even how she heard of it in the first place—but it has been long-since abandoned, its mechanical guts spilled and forgotten. As for the Doctor, he leans back on the settee, his hands clenched over his face, pushing his specs up into his hair.

He doesn't move when Rose steps into the room. She tries to remember the last time she was able to sneak up on him like this. She can't.

Rose clears her throat and the Doctor snaps to, slipping his specs back down and reaching for the globe and the sonic as if he never let them go.

"Did you need something?" the Doctor asks. Rose can't help but notice how tired he looks; she swears the lines around his eyes run deeper than they used to.

"Yeah," she says. "I…"

She hesitates. Silently, she berates herself for her cowardice. Why can't she just talk to him—why can't she just say what's on her mind? She's never had this problem with anyone else, not ever, never had to stopper her words or tiptoe on a thousand invisible eggshell-thin rules the way she does around him. Squirming in her gown (god, but it's absolutely _murdering_ her ribcage), Rose casts about for the best words to open this discussion, because she absolutely _is_ going to initiate this discussion, she's not going to let him squirm away from her this time, she spent more than enough time putting up with pinching shoes and heavy underskirts and beyond-stupid 18th-century customs and she's had enough of the bloody damn rules. She's not going to let him close around her like a corset, cinching her closer and closer only to push her away when things get too tight; she's going to put her foot down and they're going to have a bloody _talk_ because it's ridiculous for them to keep brushing everything under the rug, and this dress is hot and scratchy, and he's infuriating, and why didn't she just go take her dress off before this, and wouldn't it be so much better to have things out in the open instead?

Yes, she decides; yes, it would. Rose steels herself.

"I need help taking my dress off," she blurts out.

The Doctor's eyes raise a little in surprise, and Rose furiously fights the blush rising in her cheeks—of all possible things, why, why was _that_ the one that popped out of her mouth?

"It's just, back in France, there were people to help with this sort of thing," she rushes, stumbling over her words. "And Mickey's already gone to bed, and, you know, it sort of seems like a bad idea to show up on the Estate wearing something out of the 1700's."

"The Estate?" the Doctor asks, frowning.

"Yeah." She swallows. "You said you were gonna take me home, remember?"

"Right," says the Doctor, diverting his attention back to the instruments in his hands.

Rose waits for him to speak again, but he's strangely quiet. "You are still planning to take me home, right?"

"Well." The Doctor fiddles with the globe, tapping the sonic against it in a _rat-a-tat-tat_. "Certainly, yes, I did say that. And. And I meant it. That was indeed a valid threat. No, not a threat—a promise. I am absolutely, positively, definitely taking you home."

He sneaks a glance up at her. "Unless. You know. You're not ready to go home yet."

Relief washing over her, Rose hides a smile. "I think I can wait a bit."

"Good," replies the Doctor just a little too quickly. When Rose can no longer hide her smile, he points an accusatory finger at her. "I did mean it, though," he insists.

"Sure."

"I am taking you home. Just not right this instant."

"Got it."

"It wasn't a bluff."

"'Course not."

"Just…no reason to rush, right?"

Rose beams at him. "No reason at all."

"Excellent." The Doctor brushes some nonexistent dirt off his trousers before standing up from the settee, placing his instruments back down on the table. "Glad that's sorted. So, I'll see you tomorrow bright and early, then? _Tomorrow_ and _early_ being relative terms, of course."

"Sure, but, erm…"

The Doctor watches her expectantly, and Rose's cheeks grow warm beneath his gaze again. "I still need help," she admits, gesturing over her shoulder, to the laces on the back of her dress.

Eyes following the line of her hand, the Doctor's face goes blank. Rose thinks she can pinpoint the very moment realization dawns on him, his eyebrows arching once again in surprise.

"Right," he says, shaking his head. "Yes, of course." Wordlessly, he spins his finger in a circle, a silent suggestion that Rose should do the same. Rose turns away, forces herself not to twitch at the coolness of his hand on her neck as he brushes a tendril of hair out of the way.

They both fall quiet, the silence only interrupted by the soft sounds of silk and linen whispering against each other while the Doctor works, deftly untying knots and unlacing laces. But for all that his fingers are talented, the Doctor isn't quite as adept at this as the women at court, and more than once, Rose's breath hitches as the corset tightens before loosening.

Rose stifles a laugh. She'd be lying if she said she had never fantasized about this at least a little bit, the Doctor slowly peeling a gorgeous gown off her body, unwrapping her like a delectably rich gift. But between the pinch at her waist and the anxiety in her tummy and the ache in her ribs, this just might be one of the single unsexiest things she has ever experienced.

"So, what did you two get up to while I was away?" Rose asks—she tells herself it's an attempt at playfulness, just a distraction, and not related in any way to what Mickey told her in the console room. (It's certainly not a quiet way to test him, definitely not a subtle way to see how far she can push.)

The Doctor pulls a lace a little too tight and Rose bites her tongue to stop herself from grunting. "Not much," the Doctor replies, and Rose could almost believe him. "We mostly just did a bit of research, poked around until I figured out how to get back to y—how to sort things out."

"Yeah, Mickey said it was only a few hours here."

"Yeah," the Doctor echoes, but something about the way he says it is flat, empty.

His fingers still at her back. "Rose, I'm sorry."

Rose shrugs, squirming in her half-done corset. "Eh, you're doing your best. Eighteenth-century underwear's a right bitch."

"I'm sorry I didn't come back sooner."

Rose's lips part in surprise. "Ah," she says, softly.

The Doctor resumes his task, pulling at the laces once again. "It shouldn't have taken me so long to figure it out, the loose connection in the fireplace," he continues. "It's ridiculous, really. I don't know what came over me."

At that, Mickey's words resound in her ears. _He wasn't half-mad while you were gone_.

"Don't worry, it won't happen again," says the Doctor. "But still: I apologize. Six months is a long period for a human to be stranded anywhere, especially three hundred years out of their own time."

"It was only five and a half months," Rose mumbles halfheartedly.

"Still. I should have done better."

"Eh," says Rose. "It's all right. I knew what I was getting into, crashing through that mirror. I mean, you were pretty explicit about what would happen."

She drinks in a deep breath now that her ribcage has the room to expand. She can tell by the position of the Doctor's hands at the small of her back that he'll be done loosening the corset soon; she tells herself that if she's going to talk to the Doctor, really properly talk to him, she needs to do it now, while neither of them can see the other's face. She tells herself it will be easier that way, even if she can imagine exactly expression his eyes and mouth will make.

"I'm actually more upset about how you treated me afterward," she admits, her pulse thundering at the confession.

The Doctor falls silent once again—doesn't even emit an irritated sigh or let loose an explanatory bit of babble. He just works on pulling the last of the laces loose, his pace steady and never-changing. Lightheadedness suffuses Rose's head, filling it like a dull fog, and she knows this time it's got nothing to do with the corset.

"Look, I know you were just frustrated, and concerned about the timelines, and—and maybe a little worried about me, too," Rose rushes. ( _A wounded animal_ , she remembers Mickey saying; _Couldn't see or hear anything in front of him_.) God, she hopes the Doctor doesn't notice the way the back of her neck flushes. "But you can talk to me about it, yeah? Just let me know those things are going through your head, instead of being all mean and angry at me."

"I was never angry with you," the Doctor murmurs.

Brow wrinkling in confusion, Rose glances over her shoulder. "What?"

At last, the gown and corset completely loosen around Rose, enough that she has to clutch her arms to herself to keep the garments from slumping to the floor. "All done," says the Doctor, and Rose hears him step back, step away. "You're good to go."

Pulling together the last threads of her courage, Rose whirls around to face him.

"Doctor—"

He stops, hands shoved in pockets, mouth stretched thin. He waits.

"Just please tell me what's going on," Rose says, pushing the words out before she has a chance to overthink them.

Glancing around the room—at the books on the shelves, the other books scattered on the floor, the faded rugs and comfortable old afghans, the imitation Tiffany lamp (or a genuine Tiffany lamp, one never knows)—the Doctor plays for time. "I'm sorry I was so unpleasant to you earlier," he tells her slowly. Carefully. "You're right. It was unnecessary. I let my frustration get the better of me. And you didn't deserve that. You…you only did what I would have done, after all."

Shaking her head, Rose allows her corset and gown to fall to the floor, leaving her in nothing but a thin white shift. She steps out of the garments, toward him, watching him as he watches her. If the Doctor registers how bare she suddenly is, he doesn't show it; somehow, despite being fully-clothed, despite the gates shuttering his face, he seems more naked than she does.

Rose approaches him slowly (gently, so she doesn't scare him off). "Please."

"What more could you possibly want from me?" the Doctor pleads tiredly.

"Doctor," Rose breathes, her stocking-feet padding silently over the wood-paneled floor until they come to a stop opposite his plimsolls. She stands very close to him, now, close enough to count every single one of his eyelashes, chart a starfield out of his freckles.

(Rose wonders if Reinette noticed any of these things. Did she admire the shape of his mouth when he spoke excitedly of science and adventure and awe at the majesty of the universe and the turn of the earth—did she feel a warm glow in her chest when his eyes landed on her face, did she sense his double-heartsbeat when they drew close for a kiss?)

"When everything's said and done, what do you think you'll regret more?" Rose asks, her voice gone quiet and soft, and maybe just a little sad. "Everything you said and did—or everything you didn't?"

The Doctor's hands ball into fists in his pockets, and Rose fully expects him to turn and flee. But before Rose has a chance to react, his hands are no longer in his pockets—instead they're cupping around her jaw, shocking her with their coolness as he draws her face upward for a harsh and bruising kiss.

A strange buzzing fills Rose's head and her mind goes completely blank.

For a moment that stretches into eternity, she can't hear anything but her pulse rushing and roaring in her ears, can't feel anything but the cool pressure of the Doctor's hands framing her face and the warmth of his breath on her lips. She stiffens, mouth parting in surprise as her brain races to catch up with everything that's happening. She half-expects the Doctor to take advantage of the opening, invade her mouth with his tongue like any other bloke would do, pushing past the swell of her lower lip and tasting her like she's a whole new world for him to explore, but he doesn't; for all that the kiss is frantic and she can feel his teeth in it, it's surprisingly chaste.

It's still too much.

Overwhelmed by the intensity of it all, by the Doctor's closeness and the way he trembles as he clutches her, by the hormones fizzing up drunkenly in her head, raging a fierce battle with everything else crowding in there—the confusion, the hurt, the shock, and yes, the want, of course the want, the want that kept her going in France, kept her awake more nights on the TARDIS than she'd ever admit, the want that had burned so hot and so shamefully and so deep in her gut that it was easier to pretend it wasn't there than to acknowledge its scorching existence, always the _want_ —

(But the look on his face when he talked about Reinette, but the things she'd heard and seen back on that spaceship—)

 _Couldn't think about anything that wasn't you_

—Rose shoves at the Doctor's chest, pushing _hard_ so she can break away with a ragged gasp. The Doctor staggers backward, panting a bit himself, his eyes blown as wide as Rose has ever seen them.

Chest heaving, Rose stammers incoherently, steadying herself against a bookshelf. Her mind fishes about for something to say (absolutely anything will do, anything, anything please), but her heart flutters madly in her chest and she can't think of anything else but that and the taste of the Doctor on her lips.

The Doctor blinks the shock out of his eyes and pushes a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry," he blurts out.

Rose knows she should reply, but her vocal chords don't seem to work at the moment.

"I'm so sorry," the Doctor repeats breathlessly as he pushes past her out of the room.

Rose doesn't turn to watch him leave; she's stuck in place, her feet frozen and unmoving as if they were glued to the floor. The only thing she can do is shiver, and whether she should blame the cold or something else entirely is anyone's guess.

Rose gulps.


	4. the presenting of the left arm

The next day, the Doctor's behavior can only be described as _jumpy_.

"And here we have the great lakes of Therran Vox!" he announces, throwing open the TARDIS doors to reveal a bleach-bright vision of sparkling water and dazzling white sky. "Not to be confused with Academy-Award-winning actress Charlize Theron, mind, nor the lakes of TheronnEx, though much of the plant life is certainly related, evolutionarily speaking."

The Doctor plucks three umbrellas from their resting-place against the TARDIS wall, tossing one to Rose and Mickey each in turn before stepping out of the TARDIS with an umbrella of his own. "Something like third cousins, maybe third cousins once removed, maybe twice," he continues. "Bit hard to know for certain, sort of tricky trying to gauge that sort of thing when your generations span centuries and solar systems. Speaking of reproduction, did you know that the Therranian water lily is one of the few angiosperms in the known universe that can reproduce via spores? Well, they don't technically reproduce via spores, per se, but their pollen has been known to hitch a ride on them a time or two. Sort of like a botanical hitchhiker, only on a semi-mesoscopic scale. And when you're talking spores and pollen able to withstand the vaccums of space, well, that sort of explains the galaxy-hopping, doesn't it? Though the waterlilies on TheronnEx have a sort of unfortunate expired meat smell about them…"

Rose stretches and yawns, ignoring the Doctor's prattling in favor of taking in the sights all around her. She's surrounded on all sides by an intricate network of perfectly round lakes, connected only by slim strips of grassy land. Reflecting the world above—everything from willowy trees to the pearl-white sky to the metallic towerlike structures reaching high up, up, up into the swollen candyfloss clouds—the lakes glimmer and sparkle like a collection of mirrors, glasslike and silver and still. Stepping closer to one of the lakes, Rose inspects a tree by its banks, whose slender roots creep gently into the water. Her eyes travel over the trunk, which stretches high into the morning air, lifting its canopy of paper-thin roots far above the water surface. It doesn't take an architect to observe the similarity between the trees and the tower structures, whose engineers clearly looked to the willows for inspiration in constructing both the complex, interwoven-strut foundations of the towers as well as their observation decks spreading up above. Rose jumps as a handful of water droplets fall across her upturned face, just before a light drizzle descends all around, tiny water droplets singing through the air before they land with a series of dainty plops and splashes. Their touch on the grass releases a mild fragrance into the air, something delightfully fruitlike and soft.

It's absolutely wonderful, a proper exotic alien planet, and Rose lifts her face completely toward the sky, eyes closed as the rain peppers kisses on her cheeks. _God_ , she's missed this.

Without even thinking about it, Rose reaches for the Doctor's hand, but he sets off at a brisk pace before her hand can do anything more than brush against his, blathering on about para-symbiotic relationships and rhizomes and apomixes and god knows what else.

(Scratch that earlier thought—he's _ridiculously_ jumpy.)

"Is this normal?" Mickey asks under his breath.

Rose watches the Doctor as he wanders off, chattering loudly to no one in particular, and she tries to ignore the sick feeling bubbling up in her chest, the hurt aching in her gut. It's just because she didn't sleep well last night, she reasons. For all that she had dreamed of being back aboard the TARDIS, snuggling into her bed replete with plush foam and soft blankets and squishy pillows, she slept absolutely dreadfully. Probably she'd just got used to the hard and unforgiving beds back at the palace; certainly the lack of sleep can't be blamed on anything else. Or anyone, for that matter.

Great fat rain droplets smack against her head like a dozen tiny missiles and Rose wipes water out of her face, deploying her umbrella with a sigh. "No," she replies. "This is new."

"Did something happen last night?"

"No. Nothing happened."

Rose knows Mickey doesn't believe her, would be able to tell by his suspicious silence even if she couldn't see the eyebrow arching off his forehead, but mercifully, he doesn't press for more. Instead, he proffers his arm to Rose, standing ramrod-straight like he's posing for a school formal photo. He would look a little silly even if his umbrella wasn't covered in bright yellow smiley faces.

"C'mon, babe," he says in response to her questioning look. "Let's go for a stroll and you can tell me all about your adventures back in fancypants France."

Rose smiles despite herself. "Are you sure you'd rather hear about that than whatever thrilling greenhouse trivia the Doctor's throwing our way?"

"Nah, we'll just make sure to toss a few _uh-huh's_ and _oh how fascinating's_ his way every once in a while."

Threading her arm through his, Rose laughs.

* * *

"…and here it is!" announces the Doctor, several thousand steps and two grumpy and wet-shoed humans later. The trail stops at an impressive, five-meter tall wall, rainbow-bismuth-colored and extending as far as the eye can see in either direction; the Doctor presents it all with a flourish of his umbrella. "The main attraction, the big to-do, the _pièce de résistance_ —the grand Temple of the High Chauncery, perfect for viewing Therran Vox's universe-renowned celebration of transient luminous events!"

He turns to Rose and Mickey with a wide grin, only to be met by a pair of identical blank stares. "Oh, come on," says the Doctor, undeterred. "Mickey, you must have heard me mention the High Chauncery's luminous wassail at least once!"

"Pretty sure I've never heard any of those words in my life," Mickey replies flatly.

"So what's a transient luminous event?" asks Rose. "I mean, _luminous_ —that means _light_ , right?"

"Right you are," the Doctor replies, and is Rose just imagining it, or does he meet her gaze even less than usual? "The term refers to electrical phenomena produced during a thunderstorm."

"So, lightning," says Mickey, unimpressed.

"Well, yes, if you want to be reductive," the Doctor responds, rolling his eyes. "But it's not just lightning, it's _spectacular_ lightning. Like I said, _phenomenal_. Lots of worlds experience it, Earth included, but on most planets the events flash by so quickly, so high in the atmosphere, that you can't observe them with the naked eye. That's what makes the storms on Therran Vox so special; the chemical composition of the atmosphere here makes for an event that's far more visible. You can catch the light show in all its glory, from front-row seats! Nothing quite like it in the universe, but why would I tell you when I can just show you?"

He raps his knuckles against the gate wall and a small round window opens in the metallic surface, a liquid movement like oil springing away from soap. A humanoid face appears on the other side, her eyes a fascinating multicolor, her forehead bedecked in rows of ornamental dots.

"Invitation?" the owner of the face inquires.

The Doctor produces the psychic paper from his jacket-pocket. "Sir Doctor and his traveling companions, Dame Tyler and Majordomo Smith of the Powell Estate," he says rather grandly, "here to view some of the universe's finest luminescent theatre!"

"Of course, your Grace," replies the gatekeeper, peering at the psychic paper through the rain. She turns around and issues a curt nod to her comrade (another humanoid, another set of ornamental dots), and the window in the wall slowly opens up, widening by inches into a round doorway.

"Your timing is most fortuitous, sir—all of the other guests have already arrived, and we're closing the outer shield any moment now," the gatekeeper continues. "Per your itinerary, the first ritual doesn't take place until the morning, but that gives you the evening to settle in and enjoy the first stirrings of the storm. In the meantime, Votary Uruud here will give you a quick tour through the Temple before showing you to your quarters, and we're happy to take your luggage for you as well—"

"Sorry, sorry," says the Doctor, his eyebrow arching in confusion. "Our quarters?"

"Our luggage?" asks Mickey under his breath.

"Yes, Sir Doctor, your quarters. For the duration of the event."

The Doctor blinks. "The duration of the event," he repeats, his eyebrow arching further.

"For the month, sir."

The Doctor's eyebrow has now arched so high it's in danger of disappearing into his hairline. "Right," he says. "The month-long ritual. The month-long ritual storm celebration. The month-long ritual storm celebration for which we are totally, completely, and utterly prepared. With luggage and toiletries and things. For a month." He tugs on one ear. "Except—"

"Oh, silly us!" Rose interrupts, throwing her hands up in mock-surprise. "We left all of our things back at our ship!"

"Yes, quite!" the Doctor agrees. "So we'll just run back and grab it all, shall we?"

Rose and Mickey nod vigorously.

Glancing at each of them, the gatekeeper's face wrinkles in concern. "Forgive my impudence, your Graces, but it's too late to turn back now. You won't reach your ship before the Allstorm arrives."

"The Allstorm?" Mickey asks, incredulous even as rain dodges his umbrella to splatter against his cheek. Rose elbows him in the ribs and he clears his throat. "I mean, of course, the Allstorm!" he laughs nervously. "I know what that is. Sure, why not?"

"Thanks for the warning, but we'll take our chances," says the Doctor. "Bit of rain will do us more good than harm."

"Please, your Graces, I must protest—the blessed High Chauncery is a generous man and will supply you with all that you could need. You mustn't remain outdoors any longer, it's not safe—"

No sooner has the Doctor turned to leave than a great bolt of lightning splits open the sky, followed by a blast of thunder so violent it shakes the ground beneath everyone's feet, their ears ringing after. Looking skyward, Rose can't help but notice that the formerly friendly-looking clouds appear significantly more ominous now, less fluffy-pink and more threatening-red and heavy with rain. They cluster overhead, slowly blocking out the sun, and Rose watches as the world is painted crimson around them. She suddenly thinks of Sunday school, of pharaohs and plagues and endless night, of storms that send blood pouring from the skies and swelling in the rivers. She shudders.

Another barrage of thunder strikes, so loud Rose can feel it in her bones, rattling her teeth. The Doctor heaves an impatient sigh. "Our quarters it is, then," he says reluctantly.

The gatekeeper beams at him. "Oh, very good, sir. Thank you, sir. Welcome to the High Chauncery's Temple of the Allstorm!"

* * *

While the storm rages overhead, its searing white lightning and murderous clouds all-too-visible through a ceiling that, to all appearances, seems to be made of a thick stained glass, Votary Uruud leads the Doctor, Rose, and Mickey on a tour of the opulent beauty that is the Temple. They show the party through a marble-lined courtyard into a veranda replete with columns and overflowing in ornamental greenery and other Votaries carrying a generous surplus of niblets on trays. Mickey and Rose inspect the food eagerly, sampling things spicy and salty, sugary and sweet; Rose tries not to notice how the Doctor, strangely, avoids all of the niblets altogether. The veranda opens to a garden lush with flora of every color imaginable, vibrant vermillion and stunning cobalt and brilliant fuschia and everything in-between. Some of the flowers bloom as large as dinner plates, others as small as thimbles, and Rose watches in fascination as each of them slowly turn their faces toward the sky, almost as if they're looking for the storm, like they can sense it.

"They're lumosynthetic," the Doctor murmurs to Rose. "They've evolved to feed off light from any source, even lightning in a storm. You should see them when the real storm starts."

She nods in response, and wonders at how he doesn't lean in nearly as close as usual, how he draws away so much quicker.

The garden leads to a chamber of swimming pools nearly identical to the perfectly round lakes outside, save that their water glows with the otherworldy light of bioluminescent algae. At Uruud's gentle urging, Rose and Mickey each dip a hand into the water and delight at the glow that dances across their skin, lingering in a smattering of ghostly footprints several moments after leaving the pool.

In addition to the wonders that call the Temple home, Rose, Mickey, and the Doctor also encounter other guests as they dutifully follow Uruud, people of all shapes and shades and sizes, everyone from other Therrans to bird-people with special goggles to fish-people with special suits to upright rhinoceri and even a group of New Earth's cat folk, though thankfully, Rose notes, none of them appear to be nuns. Almost all of the Therrans bear the same dots on their faces as Uruud and the gatekeeper, all in different numbers and configurations. One such woman, a gorgeous figure clad in a semisheer gold and scarlet gown with facial markings to match, watches them from the safety of her richly-clad party, her eyes lingering on the Doctor long after he walks by.

(Half a year ago, Rose would have threaded her arm through the Doctor's and shot the woman a dagger-filled glance until she drew back in surprise, would have done it without even thinking. Now she just bites her lip and silently wishes for the woman to slip on a banana-peel.)

As they pass through the menagerie afterward, peering through latticework enclosures at a host of incredible creatures (winged lizards and scaled mammoths and jewel-skinned snakes, oh my), Rose starts to notice the walls around them—wide as they are, and as full as the space is between them, it's sort of difficult to tell, but she could almost swear they were curved. In fact, she thinks, stepping closer so she can fit her palm to one wall's smooth surface, she would be willing to bet that all the rooms in the Temple are built this way, round-walled and circular like the lakes outside.

"It's like a ripple," she realizes aloud when the party reaches the entertainment library, whose walls are lined with curving shelves that are not packed with books or movies so much as hundreds upon hundreds of glowing white orbs.

"Beg pardon?" asks Votary Uruud with a polite small.

"The Temple. It's built like a ripple, isn't it?"

Uruud's smile brightens into something genuine then. "It is indeed, your Grace!"

"You're not wrong," says the Doctor thoughtfully. "The Temple is made up of a series of concentric rings, each split into different chambers for different purposes. The deeper into the Temple you go, the smaller and more important the chambers become—entertainment and feasting and grand ritual gives way to spaces of study, sleep, work, and personal worship."

He pauses for a moment, musing. "And with the glass ceiling exposing everything to the gods above, I'd imagine you're right—from a bird's-eye view, the structure would look just like a ripple. Well-spotted, Rose."

"Your Graces are most observant," says Uruud, beaming at each of them in turn. "Although few are as resplendent as the High Chauncery's Temple, each of the Allstorm Temples is inspired by the form of water in honor of They Who Provide."

"Who's that? Like a bunch of gods?" Mickey asks, interest piqued.

"They are one god," Uruud replies, and then, continuing in much the same fashion as someone reciting an oft-spoken Bible verse, "for just as our gods cannot be tamed by earthly will, neither can man nor woman tame the form of water."

Confused, Rose and Mickey both turn to the Doctor. "They Who Provide is the genderless water god," he explains. "Our hosts don't really adhere to a binary the same way you lot tend to. Gender isn't assigned at birth, but rather chosen at the coming-of-age. You choose one or the other, or both, or neither, and you can change it at any time."

"So which one did you choose?" Mickey asks Uruud. "If that's not a rude question or anything," he adds hurriedly.

"I follow in the footsteps of They Who Provide," replies Uruud, bowing their head in deference.

"So, like, do you have a special party for it, or something? Like a bar mitzvah?"

Uruud laughs, quickly sobering after. "Forgive me, your Graces! I'm merely surprised—even though the Temple receives a great many honored guests for each Allstorm, most of them seem to prefer the delights of our leisure chambers and pleasure rituals rather than inquire after our ways. Storm bless them, but…"

"Let me guess," Rose cuts in with a grin. "They're all either snooty prigs, entitled prats, or insufferable know-it-alls who love telling you how to do your job?"

"Oh, I would never dare besmirch the name of our honored guests," replies Uruud, the very picture of politeness even as a spark of mirth twinkles in their eyes. "But I also wouldn't dare argue with the wise words of such an honored guest, either."

"Of course not," Rose replies, tapping the side of her nose.

A chirping sound fills the air then, and Uruud lifts their wrist to check their watch (or at least Rose assumes it's a watch, though she imagines they probably call it _a timekeeper_ or something fancy like that). "And now, your Graces, I must assume my other duties for the evening," says Uruud. "However, I would be happy to show you to your quarters first!"

They rap their knuckles on a blank patch of wall, just like the Doctor did earlier, and just like before, a round doorway opens up, widening like a mouth. Uruud steps through, Mickey following after; the Doctor pauses, however, so Rose does as well. She watches him as he stares up through the ceiling, his hands tucked in his pockets, his brow wrinkled in deep consideration.

Rose draws a deep breath. All right. They're alone, now. Just the two of them. No big deal. They can still be normal. Right?

"Penny for your thoughts?" Rose prompts.

The Doctor's eyes narrow at a particularly bright arc of lightning dancing overhead. "I'm still mulling over what the gatekeeper said. _For the duration of the event, for the month_. But I checked and double-checked the TARDIS chronometer before we stepped out, and this is the wrong time of year for the Allstorm, I'm sure of it. I wanted to show you two the sights, to be sure, but this isn't quite what I had in mind. It's like trying to buy a dog and receiving a coyote instead. I wouldn't have brought us here if I'd known…"

Sighing, he shakes his head. "At any rate, why would so many people willingly lock themselves up in one building for an entire month? Spectacular lightning-show or no, that's a dreadfully long time to be cooped up in the same building."

"Well, Uruud mentioned other stuff too, pleasure rituals and whatnot," Rose points out. An unfortunate thought pops into her head and her eyes widen in alarm. "Oh god, that's not like a fertility ritual or forced-mating thing, is it?"

"What? No!" laughs the Doctor. "It's just regular ol' fun, sanctioned by the god of your choice. Feasts and plays and weddings and galas and drinking a little too much of the holy libations, that sort of thing. An Allstorm is always an excuse for celebration."

"Even if it's taking place at the wrong time?"

"Even if." The Doctor quiets then, suddenly thoughtful. "Still, though. An entire month? Granted, it's been a few decades since my last visit. Not to mention, they don't call it the Allstorm for nothing—it covers the whole planet, wrapping all of Therran Vox in a brilliant display of water and light. But you're talking about something that lasts a few days, a week, tops. Certainly not a whole month!"

"Well, I'm sure Uruud would be happy to tell us more about it, if we asked," Rose suggests. "Maybe it's a one-off thing, or—I don't know, maybe things are just different now."

The Doctor's gaze shifts to her, and Rose could swear a shadow flickered across his face for just the briefest second. If she didn't know any better, she would say it looked a little like sadness. Or worse, resignation.

"Yep," he says, his voice clipped even as he smiles. "You're probably right."

Rose frowns. It feels like something just _happened_ , like she just said the wrong word and the Doctor shuttered the gates after, but she can't put her finger on it, and the Doctor hardly seems in the mood to help. He brushes past her without another word, following after Mickey and Uruud through the round doorway, hands firmly tucked in his pockets.

Worrying her lower lip between her teeth, Rose lingers for a moment after, wondering. Guilt and frustration bubble up in her gut, churning in equal measure. Is this just how it's going to be between them, now? Awkward and distant and stiff, and forever?

(How the hell is she supposed to fix this?)

* * *

"My sincerest apologies," says Uruud, frowning as they peruse the screen of their wristwatch. The light from the screen bathes their face in a gentle blue, highlighting their dots in stark relief. "I'm so sorry, but I cannot seem to find your names in the database. I can only think the electrical interference from the Allstorm is affecting our information network…"

"Oh, it's no worries," replies the Doctor with a breezy wave of the hand. "Just chuck a few rooms our way, any rooms will do."

"Of course, sir. I have two rooms available; will that suit the needs of your party?"

"If you need additional space," calls a soft voice behind them, smooth and silken, "I would be delighted to share."

Rose and the Doctor turn to see the red-and-gold woman from before, her immaculately-painted crimson mouth spread in a beatific smile, and god, she's even more beautiful up close. Voluminous black hair, eyes as blue as lapis, features that couldn't be more perfect if they'd been chiseled by a master sculptor; Rose can't blame the woman for being so beautiful, or showcasing it so well (how can she, when even she can't tear her eyes away?), but the self-assurance she projects, the confidence in her gait as she strolls up to their party, looking the Doctor up and down, makes something burn in Rose's chest, twisting and growling like a tiny little green-eyed beast. This, Rose thinks, is a woman who has received everything she has ever wanted, and has no doubts now that anything else she wants will soon be hers as well.

And then there's the fact that the Doctor hasn't said anything to rebuff her, and Rose fumes, and worries, and wonders if—

"He's taken," she blurts out.

In her periphery, Rose sees the Doctor glance her way, his expression unreadable. The woman, however, offers her an imperious look that she knows all too well. Her gaze travels over Rose, appraising. Rose is suddenly very aware of what she must look like right now, all damp jeans and dripping umbrella and shoes squelching with mud. But she didn't spend half a year in the French court for nothing; she draws herself up to her full height, chin up, and looks the woman square in the eye, offering a sly smile.

"Thank you for your kind offer, but I'm afraid we can't accept," Rose says, the words falling into place like the dials on a slot machine. "See, he's married—"

"To Mickey!" the Doctor interrupts with a mad grin.

Now it's Rose's turn to stare.

 _What?_

The Doctor just beams at the noblewoman, his smile gigawatt-bright. Rose turns to Mickey for help, for a dose of sanity, for _anything_ , but he can't offer anything useful; he's too busy looking surprised.

"Ah, it feels like it was just yesterday," the Doctor says wistfully, looping an arm around Mickey's shoulders. "Quite possibly because it _was_ just yesterday. It's all still very new, you see. Bit of a whirlwind affair. Almost completely unexpected. But the heart wants what the heart wants. Isn't that right, Peaches?"

"Erm," says Mickey.

"And we thought, what better place to honeymoon than Therran Vox during the Allstorm?" continues the Doctor. "I wanted a trip to Barcelona, personally, but I just can't say no to this face." He tenderly pinches Mickey's chin and Mickey looks very much like he wouldn't mind being swallowed up by the floor right about now. "He's a dreadful romantic, my Mickey."

" _Peaches_?" Mickey asks, voice faint.

"We're still figuring out the pet names," the Doctor whispers conspiratorially to the noblewoman, and Rose fights the urge to roll her eyes, or stomp her foot, or maybe to scream. "Like I said, it's all very new. But we're very much in love, isn't that right?"

Mickey shoots Rose an uncertain look, and the Doctor tightens his arm around Mickey's shoulders until he yelps in surprise. "So in love, right, _darling_?"

"So in love it's almost unbelievable," Mickey replies through a teeth-gritted smile.

"So in conclusion, my dove and I would be more than happy to share a room," the Doctor finishes.

"Very good, sir," replies Uruud, relief washing over their face. "Now, if you'll just follow me, we'll get you settled in!"

"Anyway, thanks again for the generous offer!" the Doctor calls back to the red-and-gold woman as he follows Uruud down the corridor. Mickey trails after the two of them in something of a daze, as if he still can't quite believe what's going on. Rose can't say she blames him. She's having a little trouble processing it all herself.

(So is she just supposed to pretend that everything is normal, then, except when the Doctor starts to feel flighty? Five and a half months she waits for him, she _waits_ , and at the end of it he'll shout and then fall silent and then act all remorseful, he'll insult Rose and then apologize and then, out of nowhere, apropos of nothing, grab her _and kiss her_ , not six hours after he was ready to jump through that window and leave her and Mickey stranded for god-knows-how-long, _not six hours after he was kissing another woman_? And then after all that, the mood swings and the almost-confessions and the bullshit refusal to discuss anything that truly matters, and now _he's_ the one pushing _her_ away? And what, is Rose just supposed to accept it, roll with the punches, fall in line like a good little tin soldier? She's just supposed to stand there and _take_ it?)

The guilt from earlier subsides, a tide drawing back to reveal a shore littered in broken shells and bits of glass and something black and sticky, an oil spill slowly staining the sand.

"Rose?" Mickey calls from down the corridor, stopping to wait for her.

Hands balled into fists, Rose follows after them, wondering how her day could possibly get any worse.


	5. the s reversed

Beneath a canopy of ever-brightening lightning dancing across the sky, dazzling white slicing through a canvas of sapphire-blues and bruise-purples and ominous reds, the afternoon slowly slides into the evening. Certainly, Rose is sure things happen during this time; she's equally sure she has no idea what they are, and she doesn't care.

(Uruud shows her to her room. It's fine. It's a room. It's got a bed. Before Rose has a chance to poke around anymore than that, Mickey stops by with an invitation— _We're off to do some investigating, fancy a ride-along?_ —and that look on his face, all nervousness and uncertainty mixed with apprehensive hope, just cements in Rose's mind how very bad everything is, if the Doctor can't even be arsed to come in here himself like he normally would. Rose begs off in favor of a nap, and ignores the worry that plays across Mickey's face after. But it wasn't entirely a lie, because blessedly, the bed has got a canopy to block out the light-show blaring through the glass ceiling above, and the temptation to smother her woes in an ocean of silky bedclothes and feather-stuffed pillows is indeed quite strong. But Rose just sits on the bed instead, arms crossed and toes tapping and eyes staring at nothing in particular while her brain replays the last twelve hours like some kind of horrid sitcom on syndication, playing over and over and over and over.)

Right on schedule, the first ritual begins—or rather, the first "ritual", as Rose thinks of it, considering that even if it's presented like a Therran Communion, it seems a lot more like a threadbare excuse for the guests at the Temple to pull on fancy clothes and get blind-stinking drunk. Normally, the whole thing might delight Rose, the chance to doll up and immerse herself completely in the local culture, taste a range of fine alien libations and make new friends and maybe even flirt a little, but now it just seems sort of pointless and silly, a bunch of children playing at being adults with their fancy-dress and their fermented Britvic.

(Uruud brings a gown for Rose to wear to dinner. Rationally, she recognizes that it's quite an elegant thing, all slim-fitted bodice and voluminous skirts and Prussian blue velvety-softness; less rationally, after Mickey pops back by her room with news of his and the Doctor's escapades— _Can't find that High Chauncery bloke anywhere, none of the Votaries know where he's got off to, what do you think of that?_ —Rose wonders how the fabric would hold up if she tore it to straps and fashioned herself an escape rope, climbing out the window and deserting this stupid fancy place and its even stupider guests like a princess absconding from her tower. Planet-consuming lightning storms can't be all _that_ dangerous, right?)

Dinner takes place, at some point, somewhere. A grand hall, probably, but Rose is three swallows deep into her third (or fourth?) glass of so-called "ritual wine" and things are starting to get just the littlest bit blurry around the edges. Mostly she notices that the hall is packed full of people, and it's loud, and there's food, and a whole host of traditions accompanying it all. Each food item is laden with symbolic meaning, and eaten only after a session of chant-and-repeat, the entire dining hall buzzing with the rhythmic hum of people reciting scripture, lifting their faces toward the lightning scrawling overhead. Rose moves her lips along with everyone else, if only not to disrespect Uruud and the other Votaries, and after, she dutifully places the food into her mouth and chews and swallows, because it's there, and she should, regardless of the protests of the seized-up beartrap that seems to have replaced her stomach. Probably some of the food she eats is tasty, and some of it isn't. She doesn't notice one way or the other.

(Uruud is kind enough to help Rose with her hair and makeup, styling both after the latest high Therran fashions, all gently sculptural curls and dew-glittering glaze painted on her skin. The whole process is so mirror-reminiscent of her time in France that Rose can't decide whether to laugh or cry; in an effort to convince herself that she has, in fact, been rescued by the Doctor, and is not still somehow trapped millennia in the past surrounded by strangers and unknown customs and unspoken rules, she asks Uruud any and every question she can think of, and absorbs herself in their replies. She inquires about their choice to become a Votary (they were Called) and if they've got any family (two parents, three siblings) and the meaning of the ornamental dots on each Therran's face (one dot for every Allstorm they've survived, according to tradition hearkening back to the ancient times, and with a smile, Uruud places a gem beneath Rose's lower lip, gifting her with a temporary honorary badge of her own). Rose encourages them to speak until the words flow as freely as the wine outside, and privately takes comfort in the paint they brush over her skin. When they're done, Rose's collarbone sparkles as if covered with a necklace, her glitters as if topped with a tiara, and her back could almost sport a pair of wings glinting in the flashing light. It feels like a shield, a second skin, a mask, one that doesn't slip even when Rose reunites with Mickey and the Doctor in the dining hall and the latter barely manages to spare her a glance.)

Downing the rest of her fourth (possibly fifth) glass of wine, Rose tries not to stare at Mickey and the Doctor, but it's sort of difficult considering that they're seated directly across from her. They both look quite sharp in their suits, tailored to perfection by talented Votaries, Rose assumes. (Distinctly tuxlike, their suits are; Rose wonders if they requested them specifically or if tuxes are just some sort of universal standard, somehow.) Between that and the Doctor's customary chattiness, it isn't long before most of the occupants of their table start leaning in to hear more from this _fascinating_ couple, this charming Doctor fellow and his pretty-boy husband Mickey.

(Unfortunately, Rose suspects there's nothing Uruud can do to help her with that particular mess.)

"And how did you two get together?" asks a friendly cat-person, ears swiveled forward in interest.

"He stole my girlfriend," Mickey deadpans.

Clapping him on the back, the Doctor laughs. "Aww, what a sense of humor my beloved has!" he chuckles. "We did meet through Rose, actually—yes, that's her right there, across the table, hullo Rose—but there was no romance involved. At least, not at first," he adds with a wink sent Mickey's way, and Rose struggles not to roll her eyes, or throw up, or both. "That's all he meant. Isn't that right, Honey Bear?"

"Sure is, Fudge Nugget."

"See, Rose and I met through her workplace. You know how it goes, she's closing up shop, you're scheduled to do demolition on said shop, you run into each other on the lift in a classic meeting-your-future-husband's-best-mate-meetcute. Instant friendship! Wouldn't you say, Pootsy-Pie?"

"Whatever you say, Pudgy McGee."

"Let's just say Rose found me very charming, once upon a time," the Doctor continues, "and Mickey here, feeling jealous that someone was encroaching on the territory of his best mate—that's Rose, hullo again, Rose—well, he decided that he should find out what all this cattywhumpus was about, meet this _Doctor_ bloke that Rose couldn't stop raving over. And the rest, as they say, is history. Wouldn't you agree, my little Muffin Top?"

"You got it, Sugar Tits."

Rose watches as the Doctor chokes on his wine and Mickey pats him on the back perhaps just a little more enthusiastically than the situation warrants. The Doctor shoots him a teeth-gritted grin afterward and Mickey just smiles the universe's most beatific serene smile. And that, for whatever reason, inspires Rose with a funny little thought.

"My dear Doctor," she says sweetly, indulging in a delicate sip of her wine, "that's all very good and well, but you must realize that isn't actually what our friend here was asking. She wants to know about how the two of you became a couple."

Rose locks eyes with him over the table, affecting a friendly smile. "She wants to know how the two of you fell in love."

It's doubtful that anyone else at the table registers the shadow that flickers over the Doctor's face; it's gone as soon as it appears, and the Doctor answers with barely a hitch.

"Well, I think I've hogged the spotlight long enough," he says to Mickey. "Why don't you tell them, my love?"

Mickey's glee can barely restrain itself, oozing out the seams as he grins like a Cheshire cat. "Oh, no, my pet," he says, planting his elbows on the table and his chin in both hands, watching the Doctor with adoring eyes, "I insist that _you_ tell them. You do it _so_ wonderfully, after all."

"Thank you, sweetie," replies the Doctor, his voice only a little strained as everyone _aww's_ around them, and Rose bites her lip to keep from laughing.

"So, that part of the story is—here we come to a part that's—well, it's a little difficult to know where to start, is all," the Doctor says, tugging nervously on one ear. "It just feels like we've been in love for so long, you see, that it's all sort of rolled together into one giant…love mass. Sort of like, y'know. The Thing or something."

"Oh, stop that," Rose laughs. "He's just being shy," she tells the rest of the table. "He doesn't want any of you to know about all the late-night chats the two of us had together, with him just gushing on and on about how wonderful Mickey was, how handsome he is, how lucky the Doctor is to have him, all that."

"Ah, that might be just the slightest smidge of an exaggeration—"

"No, no, go on," Mickey says, his grin widening until his face might split from it. "Tell everyone how wonderful I am!"

"He'd wax poetical for hours about the beauty of Mickey's eyes," Rose says when the Doctor doesn't reply.

"Can't blame him, they're quite nice," Mickey adds.

"He'd talk about how safe and warm he felt in Mickey's arms."

"Front-row tickets to the gunshow, right here."

"But by far, I think his very favorite thing about Mickey has always been his intellect," Rose continues, choking down her laughter as the Doctor's mouth purses thinner and thinner. "In fact, I used to stay up late reassuring him that, no, Mickey wasn't too smart for him—"

"Aww, babe," says Mickey, looping an arm around the Doctor's shoulders.

"—but he just insisted that no matter how hard he tried, he'd never be Mickey's intellectual equal," Rose says, disguising her snickers as a cough. "In fact, after their first kiss, the Doctor called me straightaway to tell me—"

"His hands," the Doctor blurts out, and everyone at the table turns back to him.

"Sorry?" asks the cat-person from earlier.

The Doctor doesn't spare a glance for her; his eyes are locked squarely on Rose.

"Just—they're nice hands," the Doctor says, with a shrug. "Good for holding. That's what it's really all about, isn't it? A hand to hold. Wouldn't you say, Rose?"

She doesn't reply; she's too busy watching his fingers as they entwine with Mickey's hand on his shoulder, and once again, the table lights up with the sounds of an audience enraptured, the cat-person pressing her paw to her chest at the cuteness of it all. The conversation starts again, picking up where it left off, but it's all just white noise to Rose's ears now as she watches Mickey and the Doctor resituate themselves to clasp their hands together atop the table, practically beneath Rose's nose. The Doctor even finishes his dinner one-handed to accommodate the whole thing, eating and drinking with his left hand like he does it all the time, and it might all be terribly funny if his thumb wasn't absentmindedly stroking over Mickey's knuckle, the way it does with Rose.

The way it _used_ to do.

Something about the mindless meaninglessness of the gesture sets klaxons blaring in Rose's head, screaming at her for her stupidity, for ever thinking anything the Doctor did anything meaningful, for ever thinking she was anything more than a joke to him, just a joke, _a joke, a worthless stupid joke and nothing he says ever means anything and you're an idiot for ever thinking it did_ and the words ricochet around her skull over and over until she drowns it out with another glass of wine.

"Good stuff, isn't it?" the Doctor asks cheerfully, and a second later, Rose realizes he's talking to her. "Therran wine is quite lovely—when you're not choking on it, anyway."

The other occupants at the table laugh politely, nodding along.

"Just a tad potent, though," the Doctor adds. "A few glasses is really all anyone needs. Everything in moderation, hm?"

He looks at Rose meaningfully, eyes darting to the glass in her hand. She wonders if he's been keeping track of her intake this whole time, if he's trying to say, in that stupid precious roundabout way of his, that she's had enough, maybe more than. Probably the Doctor is right, but then again, probably if he thinks she should stop, then probably he should just come out and say it. She's bloody well sick of all this dancing around.

With a serene smile of her own, Rose pours herself another glass. "Cheers to moderation," she says, tilting the glass in a toast before she downs its contents in one gulp.

"Cheers!" shouts Mickey and everyone else along the table, following suit with their glasses clinking and wine-draining after, but the Doctor doesn't drink, doesn't cheer, doesn't tear his eyes away from Rose. She forces herself to hold his gaze, wills her face to turn to stone so nothing can show through. If he can do it whenever he wants, then so can she.

"Well, aren't we having a lovely time?" purrs a soft voice behind Rose, and she turns to see the scarlet-dressed woman from earlier, now swathed in a crimson gown so gorgeous it makes Rose's eyes water. "Whatever is happening over here, it's far more fascinating than the events transpiring at my table."

"Ah, then you should join us!" declares the Doctor. "Not at the table, though. We were just leaving."

The woman piques an immaculate eyebrow in interest. "Oh?" she says. "Leaving for where?"

"Yeah," Mickey says, confused, and Rose's eyes narrow in suspicion. "Leaving for where?"

"Not entirely sure yet, but I thought we might nose about a bit," explains the Doctor, standing up from the table. "Get the lay of the land, go for the inside scoop, poke our beaks in where they aren't wanted, so to speak. See what we can learn about this Allstorm business and why it's suddenly taking place over the course of a month instead of a handful of days. The Votaries don't seem to know anything, the computers are functionally worthless, and for the life of me I can't seem to find any trace of the High Chauncery anywhere."

Nodding, the woman frowns. "He has not been seen for many years now, it's true," she says slowly.

"Exactly. For all intents and purposes, he's vanished, along with anyone else who might have a clue about what's going on. It's all just a little bit funny, don't you think?"

In her peripheral vision, Rose sees Mickey trying to catch her eye—he's alarmed at the Doctor's sudden candor with this stranger, she knows. But Rose doesn't share his gaze, or his worries. She knows exactly what the Doctor is doing, or what it feels like he's doing, anyway, and she's too busy sensing every ounce of the acid boiling up in her throat to weigh Mickey's concerns.

"Oh, my," the woman is saying now. "A conspiracy theory. How intriguing!"

"It is, at that. Would you care to join us?"

As if she can sense the daggers that Rose is glaring at the Doctor—or if she can see them, which, she probably can, Rose is fairly certain she's being none-too-subtle at the moment—the woman glances between the two of them, hesitating. "I wouldn't want to intrude…"

"Excellent," Rose interjects, only wobbling a little bit as she stands up from the table. "We'll just see you around, then—"

"Oh, nonsense, it's no intrusion, none at all," interrupts the Doctor, circling round the table so he can extend an elbow to the woman. "Shall we?"

Once again, the woman looks back at Rose (what, is she asking permission? Is she _gloating_?) before accepting the Doctor's offer, threading her arm through his with a gracious "I think we shall."

Without waiting for Rose (or even his supposed husband, for that matter), the Doctor takes off, arm-in-arm with the strange woman. Rose watches them as they stride away, her hands balling into fists. Nonplussed, Mickey turns around just long enough to offer Rose a confused shrug before he jogs after the Doctor and his newfound friend, or the latest thing that captured his five-second attention span, or whatever this woman is.

Sighing darkly, Rose swipes a bottle of wine off a passing tray and starts drinking.

* * *

Naami, as the woman introduces herself, soon proves herself to be quite charming (not two minutes after they've left the dining hall, and already Mickey and the Doctor are more relaxed than they've been all day) as well as delicately humorous (as evidenced by Mickey and the Doctor's smiles and laughter, and not in that polite why you do with strangers at a party) not to mention annoyingly diplomatic (as proven by her continual attempts to rope Rose into the conversation, no matter how noncommittal Rose's responding hums and grunts become). She's also devastatingly insightful, if the Doctor's eager conversation with her regarding Therran politics and society are anything to go by. In short, Naami turns out to be the sort of person that's difficult to hate—which, of course, only makes you want to hate them all the more.

"So, Rose," says Naami conversationally—as if the four of them aren't creeping quietly through the Temple archives, as if the Doctor didn't break them in with the sonic so he could hack into the information network, as if they aren't all constantly swiveling at every tiny noise and every flash of light up above because _what if it's a guard this time?_ —"Far be it from me to eavesdrop, but even from my table, I heard quite a bit about your companions this evening, and very little of you. Why don't you tell me about yourself?"

She shoots Rose a winning smile, perfect teeth framed by ideal sweetheart-shaped lips, and it lights up something somewhere in the dimming recesses of Rose's alcohol-warmed brain. It occurs to her that this woman, this upper-class, gold-gilded, well-mannered _prat_ , can probably smell an Estate girl from a hundred miles away, just like half the shrews at the French court before Reinette set them all to rights, or a shark scenting blood on the water. Any other day, Rose's hackles might rise at the thought, but now, she just chuckles under her breath, swaying ever-so-slightly on her feet. What has she got to be ashamed of, what has she got to hide? It isn't like she can make this woman's opinion of her any worse, nor, at this point, would she even care if she did.

"Pretty general question. Why don't you be more specific?" Rose asks, swigging from her bottle.

"All right. Where did you grow up?"

"A nice, big ol' trash-heap in the middle of nowhere," Rose replies brightly.

Mickey clucks his tongue disapprovingly. "Oh, come on, Rose. The Estate's not that bad."

"Sure it's not, if you don't mind a surplus of graffiti and crime and overflowing trash bins," Rose shoots back. "Next question?"

The briefest flash of uncertainty flickers across Naami's features before she tries again, her smile sliding back into place like it never left. "What inspired you to go traveling with Mickey and the Doctor?"

"Eh, you know how it is. Girl like me, you've got three options: the bloke who hits you, the bloke who cheats on you, or the bloke who promises you adventure and then up and changes his personality on you, dragging you around like so much baggage from star to star," Rose counts off, steadfastly ignoring whether or not the Doctor reacts to any of the words streaming out of her mouth. "So I figure, hey, at least with the last option, I'm out of the house. Next?"

"Erm, very well, then," says Naami, brow knitted in concern before she opts for what surely must seem like safe territory. "What about your friends, your significant other, your family? Tell me about them."

"Sure thing," Rose replies, downing another gulp of wine. "Which one would you like to hear about first—my single, lonely, unemployed mum, or my dead dad?"

"Jesus, Rose," Mickey breathes, as Naami's eyes widen with shock. Rose absolutely expects her to form that perfect mouth into the shape of a pout, her big beautiful eyes brimming with false tears as sublime and round as the most luxurious of pearls while she gently pats Rose's hand, trying to hide her cringe as her delicate princess-skin comes into contact with such a low commoner, all while she murmurs some retch-worthy patronizing claptrap about _Oh, you poor thing, you poor wretched little thing, no wonder these generous two men took such pity on you, no wonder you're all alone_.

Rose nearly jumps out of her skin when Naami gently grasps her shoulder instead. "My gods, I'm so sorry," Naami says quietly, and—and is Rose imagining things, or does she look like she actually _means_ it? "Was it—was it very recent?"

Taken aback, Rose stammers, searching for words, but Naami just shakes herself. "Oh, of course, I'm so sorry, my dear; of course you don't want to talk about such things with a stranger," she says. "I only thought to ask because you seemed unusually out-of-sorts for someone attending the Allstorm celebration, and stupid me, I'm nosy even on the best of days and that just makes it even more of a problem with the attraction to emotionally unavailable people—but you didn't ask about all that, I'm sorry, I'm babbling!"

She takes Rose's free hand in both of hers, and she looks so sincere, so bleeding _earnest_ , that Rose can't help but believe her. "Please forgive my impudence," Naami says, "and please accept my condolences for you and your mother. What a dreadful thing to happen. I'm really so sorry, darling."

"I wouldn't worry about it, Naami," the Doctor pipes up, typing away at a computer terminal and frowning when he doesn't like what he sees. "It happened a long time ago."

"Yeah," Rose replies, her voice shaking. "Why be upset about that when there are so many more _current_ things to be angry about?"

The _clickety-clack_ of the Doctor's fingers over the keyboard grows a little louder, his fingers tapping the keys just a little harder. "Or perhaps you could retire for the night, stop drinking for five entire minutes."

"Oi, now, am I gonna have to separate you two?" Mickey jokes feebly, but Rose ignores him.

"Why, what's wrong, Doctor?" she asks. "Am I embarrassing you?"

"You're embarrassing yourself," is the quiet reply.

Shame floods through Rose, leaving her lightheaded. Distantly, she hears Mickey snapping at the Doctor, hears the anger in his voice as he leaps to her defense, but she can't hear his actual words over the sound of her blood rushing in her ears; she can only feel the hot anger of them, and the cool nothingness of the Doctor's nonexistent reply. Rose's cheeks burn and her stomach churns and she feels like she might be sick.

"Actually, I could do with a bit of a rest myself," Naami tells Rose, her well-manicured hands fidgeting nervously. "Would you like company on your walk back, Rose?"

"No, ta," says Rose tiredly, avoiding looking Naami in the eye; it's exhausting to be so wrong about so many things all in one day, and she's not quite ready to admit to herself that Naami may actually be a decent person, that maybe she lashed out at her without reason. Just another thing to make her want to curl up into herself like a pillbug until she dries out on the front porch, nothing but a hollow little husk left behind. "Don't worry. He's all yours."

She leaves before anyone can stop her, skirts gathered in one hand, wine bottle in the other. Before too long, she finds her room again and slips out of her shoes, leaving them behind her as she walks, like the world's most pathetic drunken Cinderella. She wonders if it's midnight, yet, if her carriage will poof back into a pumpkin and her gown return to rags.

(Certainly no prince will come calling after her, not after the way she behaved tonight.)

Climbing into bed with her illicit treasure, Rose drinks until her eyes won't stay open any longer.


	6. the presenting of both arms

Rose is pulled from her sleep, rather violently, by the sound of hammering on her door.

"Rose," hisses a voice on the other side. "Rose, it's Mickey. Open up. Please?"

Groaning in response, Rose yanks her pillow over her aching head. When did Mickey's whispers get so _loud_?

"Rose?" says Mickey's voice, louder.

Swearing under her breath, Rose slides out of bed, squinting against the lightning blaring overhead and steadying herself with a hand to the wall as she slouches her way over to the door-it's an actual door, thankfully, not that magical hole-in-the-wall thing, which is a blessing, because Rose has no idea how that knock thing works, and she's fairly certain her brain can't handle anything more complicated than a doorknob right now. She pushes the door open to find Mickey standing in the hallway, clad in satiny jimjams and a plush robe; yet another set of amenities provided by Uruud or one of the other Votaries, Rose thinks.

"Can I help you?" she grumbles.

"I wanted to check in. What's going on with you right now?"

Rose sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. It doesn't help the pain (in fact, it might make it worse), but it at least helps allay the sensation that her head is going to inflate and float away like some kind of wine-filled balloon.

"It's...nothing," she says after a moment. "It's stupid. I'm just being stupid."

"Rose," Mickey says, admonishing.

"Mickey," she replies flatly.

Mickey crosses his arms. "Okay. Fine. We don't have to talk about it, if you don't want-"

"Great," says Rose, pushing the door closed.

"Wait! Rose!"

Groaning in frustration, Rose pulls the door back open to find Mickey looking stricken.

"Why are you really here?" she asks. "Just spit it out."

"Oh my god, he won't stop talking, okay?" Mickey blurts out. "It's driving me up the bleeding wall. No, scratch that-it's driving me all the way off the planet, out of the galaxy, into a neighboring universe. He just won't. Stop. Talking!"

Rose squints in confusion. "Who?"

"The Doctor," Mickey replies, exasperated. "Who else? Ever since we got back to the room, he's going a million miles an hour, _Allstorm_ this and _barometric pressure_ that and something about Therran politics and just all this stupid nuttery nonsense and _he won't bloody shut up_."

His mouth quirks downward in a lip-quivering pout. "I just want to _sleep,_ Rose."

Leaning against the doorjamb for support, Rose feels the smallest inkling of pity welling up somewhere where her stomach used to be; she would have warned Mickey that might happen, had it occurred to her, but she'd grown so accustomed to the Doctor's rambling during overnight stays in strangers' homes and sleepy movies in the TARDIS library and occasional stints in otherworldly prisons that his late-night lectures often served as a handy sleep aid. Or at least, they did before. Rose has no idea how she'd react to it now, after half a year's-worth of falling asleep each night completely and utterly alone.

"Look, can I just stay in here tonight?" Mickey asks, fidgeting uncomfortably in his slippers. "Please?"

Yawning, Rose nods, stepping aside to make room.

"Thank you," Mickey gushes, stopping to peck a quick kiss on her cheek before he darts inside, making a beeline straight for the bed. Rose closes the door and follows after much more slowly, her feet dragging over the floor, her entire body moving as if it were filled with lead, heavy and cumbersome and reluctant to fight against gravity's insatiable pull.

Hauling herself back into bed, Rose wants nothing more than to sleep the night away and pretend this godforsaken mess of a day never happened. But instead she lies awake next to Mickey for what feels like hours, her thoughts plodding on sluggishly in an endless parade as her stomach twists in knots.

* * *

The Doctor looks more confused than anything when he answers the door.

"Mickey's snoring," Rose grumbles by way of explanation, pushing past the Doctor before he has a chance to reply.

The Doctor doesn't move from his post by the door, doesn't even turn to look at Rose as she kicks off her slippers, gathers the skirts of her gown, and yanks open the canopy-curtain, collapsing into the bed. She pulls the duvet over her head, tunneling deep into the bedclothes like a rabbit in a burrow, and waits. Any minute now, the Doctor will acknowledge her presence, with babble or chatter or a protest, but only silence meets her ears. Silence, and then the quiet whine of the door closing, and the soft padding of the Doctor's shoes over the floor. Rose expects the bed to dip with his weight, and frowns when she hears something that sounds suspiciously like a chair dragging over the tiles instead. She peeks out from under the bedclothes just long enough to see the Doctor depositing himself at the bedside table, raking a hand through his hair.

That churning-feeling rises up in Rose's stomach again. She tells herself it's just the alcohol.

She hates how much this bothers her, how much she just wants him to pull her into his arms even after what a horrible arse he's been, hates how much she wishes he would hold her tight and promise that everything's all right. She _hates_ it.

"You don't, erm," she tries to say, mentally kicking herself even as the words leave her mouth. "You don't have to stay over there all night, you know. It's your bed after all."

Silence again.

Rose squirms in the bedclothes. Not because she feels guilty and uncomfortable; no, it's because the bedclothes are a little scratchy, that's all. The fancy, expensive, definitely-made-out-of-some-kind-of-silk bedclothes.

(Mickey said the Doctor wouldn't shut up-why isn't he blabbering now?)

"Just...you're not gonna get any rest like that, is all I'm saying," Rose tries again, her voice muffled by the mattress. "C'mon. Bed's big enough for two."

The air is quiet and still, and moments pass in endless agony. But just when Rose thinks the Doctor might sit by the desk all night after all, she hears the soft rustle of moving cloth, feels the mattress pull to accommodate another occupant. She peeks out from under the duvet again to see the Doctor lying atop the bedclothes, staring at the canopy ceiling, hands folded over his stomach and feet crossed at the ankles. He hasn't even taken off his plimsolls, the barmy alien.

The bad feeling in Rose's stomach loosens a little, but only a little. "You're not going to bed like that, are you?"

"Like what?"

"All, y'know. Still dressed and everything. Can't be comfy."

"That hangover you're nursing can't be comfy either."

Rose's cheeks burn with embarrassment. "Shut up," she mumbles, though with a mouthful of bedsheet, it emerges a bit more like _Sherderrmpf_.

The Doctor shifts next to her, and a hand creeps into her field of vision, unfolding to reveal two tablets. "Take them now, before the full effects set in," the Doctor says softly. "Should clear you up in a jiffy."

Reluctantly, Rose slips the tablets out of his hand.

"You'll need a glass of water."

"I know," she grumbles as she slides out of bed.

"Drink the whole glass."

"I know," Rose repeats, grumpily, even as she follows his orders and drags her half-lifeless corpse over to the en suite so she can fill a glass with water. Tablets, mouth, swallow, water, she drains the glass and refills it and drains it again, and already she's starting to feel better despite herself, _damn him_. After a moment, she chances a look back at the Doctor, whose thousand-yard-stare bores into the canopy up above, his face alternately painted white by the lightning leaking through the curtains and plunged back into darkness seconds later.

Rose wonders at his strange silence, what she can do to disrupt it. As disconcerting as his extreme chatter was earlier in the day, Rose would trade anything for it right now. She doesn't like it when the Doctor is quiet. It's _weird_.

Rose avoids her side of the bed on her return trip, heading straight for the Doctor instead, or rather, for his shoes. She ignores the way his eyebrow arches in question when she sits down at the foot of the bed and pulls the laces free from one plimsoll.

"You can't sleep like this," she chides gently.

"To be fair, it's doubtful I'll sleep at all."

Rose finishes unlacing one shoe and sets to work on the other. "I know."

She tugs both shoes off and scoots up the bed, unbuttoning the Doctor's top jacket-button. He doesn't try to stop her, not when she slips the next button free, not even when she moves down further, but with his hands still folded over his stomach, he doesn't exactly try to help her, either.

(Rose can feel the weight of his gaze on her face, though, heavy and questioning.)

Probably she should pull away, give him space, allow him room, if he wants it, but her hands linger near his, fingers ghosting over the landscape of his knuckles. "Just seems like you could use a proper rest, is all," she mumbles.

"I'm not tired," the Doctor says quietly.

"When's the last time you slept?"

"I'm all right, Rose."

"Yeah, that's what you say when you're anything but all right."

With a heavy sigh, the Doctor sits up, dislodging Rose's hands as he swings his legs round, hanging over the side of the bed, feet ready and prepped to stand. _To run_ , Rose thinks, and panic rises in her chest, squeezing her heart until it hurts, bursting at the seams like a stress toy clenched in an angry and unforgiving fist.

"Doctor," she tries to say, but it's too late; he's pushing up from the bed and re-buttoning his jacket and he'll slip his shoes on next just before he slips out of the room, and she's just going to be left here alone with nothing but her own thoughts and aching heart and fluttering stomach for company. Rose doesn't know if she can take another night of that-last evening was more than enough, thanks. So she rises with the Doctor and, pulling him down by the jacket-lapels, presses a kiss to his mouth.

He freezes beneath her touch.

Rose's lungs contract painfully in her chest and she pulls away, panic pulsing higher and higher and louder and oh, god, _oh, fuck, oh, no, no, no-_ -

"Rose, I thought it was clear that my actions the other night were a mistake," says the Doctor, his voice surprisingly quiet for all that its edges are sharp.

Her cheeks flush hotly in the half-dark. "You didn't say it was a mistake. You said you were sorry."

"It's the same thing, isn't it?"

"No," replies Rose stubbornly. "It's not."

The Doctor shoves his hands into his pockets, but he doesn't move to leave, so Rose considers that a small victory. She'll take them where she can get them, right now.

"Why'd you kiss me, if it was wrong?" Rose asks.

The Doctor bristles. "Why did you push me away, if it wasn't?"

"I don't know. I guess I was just surprised, or confused, or taken off-guard, or…"

Mouth pursed tight, the Doctor watches her, unconvinced.

"Look, what do you want me to say?" Rose asks, crossing her arms defensively. "You want me to say it was because of what happened in France? Fine. It was because of France. Want me to say I was jealous? _Fine_. I was jealous. Happy?"

"Jealous? Jealous of whom?" the Doctor asks, bewildered.

The question hits Rose like a physical blow; she has to step back to absorb it. " _Jealous of_ …?" she stutters, and when the Doctor doesn't elaborate, she throws her hands up in the air, at a complete loss. "Who do you _think_?"

The Doctor just shakes his head, eyes wide, and Rose drags both palms over her face in exasperation, heedless of any makeup she might be smearing. "God," she groans, "it's just so easy sometimes to forget what a bloody alien you are."

Buzzing with barely-tamed impatience, the Doctor watches her, waiting. Lightning arcs above them, painting the Doctor's face in a flash of white, and his eyebrow arches expectantly, as if to say, _Are you going to go on, or aren't you?_

Drinking in a deep breath, Rose steels herself. "You were just gonna disappear," she says. "Just running off after the next shiny thing, like always. You were gonna leave me behind, right after you promised you wouldn't."

"Rose, I never-"

"Never what? Never popped in and out of all those time windows like it was nothing, or flirted and carried on, or made a right arse out of yourself at some bourgeois party while Mickey and I were almost cut up for scrap parts? No kissing, no dancing, no _I just snogged Madame de Pompadour_?"

The Doctor's expression cools. "You do realize that I don't require anyone's permission to do those things. Or anyone's approval, for that matter."

With a heavy sigh, weighed down by the plummeting twin masses of resignation and defeat, Rose bends over to scoop her slippers off the floor. Coming in here was a mistake; she knows that now.

"Yeah," she says, her voice flat as she slips the shoes back on. "I'm sure you're right. You always are."

"Oh, come on-"

"No, I get it. You're the Doctor, you're your own man, you don't answer to anyone, ain't nobody gonna tie you down. _If you're looking for a higher authority, there isn't one_. Isn't that right?"

"Rose," the Doctor says warningly, but she plows on.

"Just, if you never want to be held accountable to anyone, not ever-that's fine, I guess, but then what's the point of having friends?" Rose pleads. "Or are we even really your friends at all-are we more sort of empty shells that you can pour information into, or just fresh pairs of eyes to make the universe seem new and bright again, or just things that make noise and distract you from feeling quite so miserable and guilty and lonely anymore?"

"Rose, that's enough."

"Is it, though? Cos I'm happy to go on about how stupid and clueless we all are, all us silly humans struggling to keep up with you hopping from world to world and one obsession to the next. After all, there's none in the group that's stupider than me, since apparently I haven't got even the faintest clue about how other people feel about me or how I'm supposed to react to their ridiculous mood swings and shifting tempers and ever-changing invisible boundaries—"

"Quite frankly, you've got no room to talk—"

"—and I can't even tell whether I've got the right to be jealous or not. C'mon, let's chat about it, I've got all night!"

"Fine," the Doctor snaps. "Yes, you are stupid. Very much so."

Rose's mouth falls open in shock, only to twist back shut. Telltale pressure builds up in her sinuses, insistent and near-overwhelming, and she blinks furiously to dam the flow before any leaks spring forth. She hasn't cried in nearly half a year; she's not about to let it happen now. She'll be damned before she lets the Doctor see her so vulnerable.

"Guess I sort of walked into that one," she mutters to herself.

"You're an incredibly stupid, reckless, selfish, short-sighted human child who can't see past the here and the now," the Doctor spits out. "Did you even think about what could have happened when you jumped through that mirror? Did it ever cross your mind, the damage you could have caused? Do you ever stop, even for a single second, to consider the consequences of your actions, how you might alter things irreparably, how you-"

"Jesus, I get it, all right? We already talked about this, I was never gonna let anything happen to Reinette or the timelines or-"

"I'm not talking about Reinette!" the Doctor shouts, throwing his hands up in the air. "When did I ever bring up Reinette? I'm talking about you, I'm talking about _me_!"

Inhaling sharply, Rose hesitates. She opens her mouth to speak. Nothing comes out. She closes it again.

She waits.

The Doctor shoves both hands in his pockets, looking resolutely at anything in the room besides her. "What would have happened if I hadn't found that last connection?" he asks, perhaps more of himself than anyone. "Or if I'd found it even a few moments later? You were already stuck there for months, _months_ , and your stupid human life is already so short as it is. If you'd been stranded there for years, decades-what if you'd gotten sick, what if you'd gotten hurt?"

Rose hasn't got a reply for that. They were all things she had wondered herself, back in France, and just hoped every day she wouldn't ever have to find out.

"I was so-I _panicked_ , Rose, I panicked and it rendered me utterly useless," the Doctor continues. "That could have cost you everything. What if I had found the connection too late, what if I'd never found it at all?"

"You would have found another way," Rose insists. "That's what you do."

"I don't, though," the Doctor laughs weakly. "Not every time. And I worry you don't understand that. You look at me like I can do anything. I can't, Rose. Your unwavering faith-I don't deserve it. And I'm not saying that for the sake of receiving reassurance," he snaps when Rose tries to interject. "I don't want that. I don't need it. Heaven knows I haven't earned it. My behavior has been nothing short of abominable, if not downright monstrous; don't think I'm not aware."

He pushes one hand through his hair, sighing heavily. "The truth is, I can't always engineer a happy ending. Sometimes there simply isn't one to be had. You've seen it, time and time again; no matter how hard I try, nearly each time we intervene to help someone, there's someone else who doesn't make it. We may save the day for most, but in the end, there are still lives lost. Someone I couldn't help, someone I couldn't save. What happens when that someone is you?"

"That'll never happen," Rose says stubbornly.

"It will, though." His eyes cinch shut, as if the conversation costs him, like his body is paying the bill with hurt. "We've already come so close. You just rush in, headfirst, no looking back, no thinking, no stopping to consider what might be. You just in front of a car to save your father, break through a time window to save a stranger, absorb the Vortex to save me-"

The Doctor swallows. "It's just a matter of time. You'll do something, or I'll misjudge something, or I'll panic, or there'll be an accident, or you'll grow tired of all of this, and-and then you'll be gone. And I'm not ready for that yet. I'm just not."

His shoulders sag in defeat. "And I'm not sure I ever will be."

Rose's hand twitches, the impulse to soothe him with touch so deeply ingrained that her body starts to move of its own accord, drawn to him like her hands are programmed to comfort, her arms to embrace. But she stops herself. Some strange cocktail of emotions is brewing and surging in her veins and she just needs a moment to sort it out properly, so the whole thing doesn't boil over into one big bubbling sticky mess. So she doesn't drown.

(She can't believe that the Doctor would ever feel so much, all because of her. All _for_ her.)

"Well," she says, hesitantly. "Stop insulting me and maybe I'll stick around longer."

"I don't think it qualifies as _insulting_ so much as _accurate_. Your actions really are astonishingly ill-advised, sometimes. Shockingly so."

"Right," says Rose, anger rising to the surface once again. "So I'm reckless. Great. And selfish. Fine. And yeah, stupid, too. Why keep me around, then? What's the point? If I'm so foolish, why don't you just get rid of me?"

"If you're not foolish," the Doctor snaps, "then why do you love me?"

A lump lodges in Rose's throat.

"I don't," she lies.

The Doctor's gaze meets hers and _god_ , does he look tired. His expression is so sad, so unbearably pathetic in the watercolor-grey splashes of light, that something wells up in her, a blind driving _need_ to wipe that stupid, awful look off his face.

(Is he upset because he believes her-or because he doesn't?)

Rose pushes him by the shoulders, a sharp jab that knocks him back a step.

"I don't," she insists. Chest heaving with exertion, she pushes the Doctor again for good measure when he doesn't reply-why won't he just say something, do something, _anything_ , goddammit-and another sharp shove sets him back until his legs hit the bed.

"I don't love you," Rose says, bitter hot tears swelling fatly in the corners of her eyes. "I don't, I don't, I swear I don't-"

"Good," replies the Doctor, his voice short. "Me neither."

"Good," Rose echoes, and please, _please_ don't let him see the moisture glittering on her lashes. "Then none of this means anything."

Yanking him down by the jacket, she captures his lips in a punishing kiss. This time, the Doctor doesn't freeze, isn't a cold marble statue unwilling and unable to respond; no, this time one hand flies up immediately to her face, gripping her firmly by the chin while his other hand clenches her by the hip, pulling her tight against him. Rose's fingers slide up to tangle in his hair, fingernails scraping against his scalp; he bites her lower lip in response, his tongue slipping past her lips when she gasps in shock.

Dizziness fizzes up in Rose's head, and this time, she knows it's got nothing to do with the alcohol. She scrapes her nails over his scalp again, privately reveling in how the Doctor swears under his breath. All those layers, all that haughty superior species _thinking-instead-of-doing_ nonsense, all those snide remarks about the base instincts of human nature, and yet here he is, trembling at her touch and clutching her close just like any human bloke might.

"Leaving your mark?" he asks breathlessly.

"Yeah," she says, pushing him until his knees buckle and he lands on the bed. "Wanna ruin you like you ruined me."

With a growl, the Doctor pulls her in for another harsh kiss.

Afterward, Rose stands on shaky legs, watching the Doctor as he fights to regain control. His chest heaves with labored breaths-did he forget to engage his bypass, she wonders?-and his eyes are glassy, unfocused. Inwardly, Rose rewards herself with a small but satisfied smile; she did this. She made him come apart, spiral unbound, surrender to just a shred of humanlike vulnerability. Just for once, _she_ was the one in control.

Yet, after the heavy rasp of his breathing dies down, when he sits up on the bed and runs a shaking hand through his hair, Rose find she can't quite meet his eyes. She's not sure why.

(He won't look at her either.)

Somewhere in the back of Rose's mind, a small voice pipes up that this is it, this is the moment to throw herself into the Doctor's arms, press a real honest-to-goodness kiss to his lips and tell him everything that's been simmering between her lungs for the last half-year (longer, if she's being totally honest). And if she really thinks about it, the voice goes on, doesn't she think if she opens up to the Doctor first, wouldn't that make it easier for him to respond in kind, to chisel even just the tiniest crack in his walls to let her in? She feels in her gut that that's true. He may never leap into things the way a human partner might, but if she jumps in first, Rose knows, there's a healthy chance he'll at least wade in after her. And even if he doesn't respond quite the way she hopes, at least then it would all be said, spoken into tangibility out in the open. At least he would _know_.

But something slithers in and strangles the little voice before it can give shape to its words, and suddenly Rose is afraid.

(Who is she kidding? She'll be lucky if he ever looks at her again, after tonight.)

Wordlessly, head thudding dully, Rose crosses to the other side of the bed, ignoring how her body still cries out for attention. She crawls beneath the duvet, her back to the Doctor. She tries not to hold her breath.

Minutes tick by. The silence is deafening.

Finally, the silence is cracked apart by the Doctor, clearing his throat before he leaves to duck into the ensuite. The sound of water splashing on skin greets Rose's ears, and she realizes he's washing up-washing her off, of course, why wouldn't he?-and suddenly all of the air leaves her lungs, her throat seizing up after. The Doctor is better than all of this, higher than all this stupid petty human hormone-ridden muck, and she just dragged him down into the dirt with her, didn't she? Surely that must be what's going through his head right now; surely he's disgusted with her.

Shame boils up deep inside. What's _wrong_ with her?

When the Doctor emerges from the ensuite and does not return to the bed, but rather heads straight for the bedroom door without so much as a _Good night_ , Rose's worst fears are confirmed. The door clicks shut behind him and for some reason that click of utter finality brings the panic flooding in.

Oh god, she's ruined everything, hasn't she?

What the _fuck_ is wrong with her?

Suddenly sleep is the furthest thing from Rose's mind, a surge of fight-or-flight adrenaline rushing through her veins. She can't stay in here. The bed is too small. The room is a cage. Her heart hammers frantically in her chest and she throws off the duvet, it's strangling her, she's got to escape, she's got to run-maybe it's not too late to apologize, or maybe if she's lucky she can find a black hole to throw herself in-

Rose yanks open the bedroom door to find the Doctor standing in the doorway, fist posed as if he was about to knock. They both blink at each other in surprise.

Rose's breath catches. Is he…? Could he be…?

"Sorry," says the Doctor, his hand slowly falling. "Erm, I just realized-Shoes."

Frowning, Rose shakes her head. "Shoes?"

Avoiding her gaze, the Doctor scratches the back of his neck. "I might've forgot to put my shoes back on."

Of course. He wouldn't-it wouldn't have anything to do with her. Feeling very stupid, Rose nods, rapidly blinking back tears. She steps aside so he can enter, her mouth twisting with the effort not to cry.

If he registers the look on her face, or notices the stiffness in her shoulders, the clenching of her hands, the Doctor doesn't show it. He crosses the room in several long strides, grabbing his trainers and returning to the door without a single glance in her direction. Stepping into the corridor, his head jerks her way, lips parting like he may say something; if so, he must think better of it, because he just issues a curt nod and starts to walk away.

Rose's pulse thunders painfully in her ears and before she knows it her feet are carrying her after him.

"Erm, Doctor…?"

He stops and turns, expression carefully neutral. "Hm?"

Oh god, what now? She feels dreadfully stupid.

"I just sort of realized," Rose stammers. "I mean, it's silly, I know, but-"

She gulps, audibly. "It's just, we, erm. Haven't really had a proper hug since I got back, have we? You know?"

He watches her silently, waiting, his expression inscrutable.

"And I don't know about you," Rose continues, shaking, "but, erm. I could really use one?"

For a few horrible seconds, Rose is certain he'll slap the olive branch out of her hands, or just leave it hanging there while he turns and runs, abandoning the poor thing to wither and rot. But in the blink of an eye he's dropping his shoes to the floor with a loud _smack_ that echoes in the hallway and another blink later and he's wrapping his arms around her, binding her in an embrace snug enough to crush the air out of her lungs. Stunned, it takes her half a moment to respond with a hug of her own, but once she does, his arms tighten even further, a steel trap with no intention of ever letting go.

Rose isn't sure why that's the thing that breaks the walls to let the tears flow free, but damn if she isn't choking back sobs now.

"The sex wasn't that bad, was it?" the Doctor asks wryly.

She can't muster the energy for a laugh, so Rose just shakes her head instead, burying her face against his chest. He smells-god, he just smells so _good_ , she'd almost forgotten, and he feels so wonderful, like wiry muscles and a slim frame, like comfort, like _home_. Her tears slowly soak his shirt, but he doesn't seem to mind, or maybe even notice.

"I didn't-" Rose tries to say, and chokes on the words. "I never meant-"

"I know, Rose," he says quietly. "Me neither. I'm sorry."

She hears him swallow, the noise thick. "I'm so sorry."

Sniffling, Rose nods against his chest. "Thank you," she whispers.

Fists clenching in the back of his jacket, Rose's fingers seize up painfully tight. "I missed you," she admits, willing herself not to shake. "God, I missed you so much."

The Doctor doesn't reply, but Rose feels his chest deflate beneath her cheek, as if he's letting out something that was trapped inside. He presses his lips and nose into her hair, breathing her in. His hold on her relaxes in increments as his thumbs draw lazy little circles on the small of her back, and Rose feels her muscles slowly loosening, the last of her tears subsiding with a hiccup. Something uncoils in her ribs, unclenching for the first time in hours-really, the first time in months-and she nuzzles against the Doctor, eyes shuttering in relief.

(It's really quite a nice hug. Nothing in the universe like it, and she would know.)

"C'mon," the Doctor says gently, pulling away after a few moments have passed. "Let's get you some rest."

Rose threads her fingers through his, offering him a faint grin. "You, erm. You gonna stay with me?"

"If you'd like," he replies, his voice soft.

Rose pushes up on her toes to plant another kiss on his mouth, a shy thing, this time, pressed to the corner as lightning pulses gently overhead, and the Doctor's lips twitch in a small smile, after.

"Yeah," Rose says. "I'd like."


	7. the conclusion

Settling back into bed next to the Doctor, pulling the rumpled duvet around her (and trying, and failing miserably, not to think of just _how_ and _why_ the duvet got to be so rumpled), it occurs to Rose that things are probably going to be just a little bit, well. Awkward. To say the least.

"So," she says, and the word suspends in the air between them, frozen like a bubble in amber. "What now?"

Flat on his back, staring at the canopy up above, the Doctor folds his hands over his stomach. "We sleep, I would imagine."

Rose holds back a sigh. Surely he knows that's not what she meant, but after everything they both said, after everything _he_ said, he probably isn't too eager to jump straight back into another Talk™; Rose imagines he needs a little bit of time to rebuild his composure, gather up all the raw viscera he spilled out and sew them back in. Which is, of course, exactly the opposite of what Rose needs ( _Let's dissect those guts_ she thinks, and wrinkles her nose after), but she can be patient. Can't she?

"Well, erm," she says, turning on her side away from him, twisting the bedclothes in her hands. "Good night, Doctor."

"Good night, Rose."

* * *

The never-ending storm and its accompanying darkness make it difficult to perceive what time of night it is (or day, for that matter), so Rose can't be sure whether she has lain wide-eyed and awake for hours or just minutes. Either way, sleep has eluded her for some time now, pointing and laughing while she chases her thoughts over and over like a bloody hamster spinning in its wheel.

"Doctor?" she asks over her shoulder, quietly, on the off-chance he could be asleep.

When he doesn't reply for a few moments, Rose wonders if he did actually manage to doze off, but soon enough, she hears a quiet, "Hmm?"

"Just wondered if you were still awake."

"Yes," he says softly.

Wincing at her stiffness—it certainly feels like she's been lying on her side for hours, whether or not that's true—Rose rolls over to face him, finds him still staring at the canopy up above. Has he moved at all since they returned to the bed, she wonders?

"Are you," Rose starts to ask, and swallows the rest of her words. _The quickest way to kill a relationship is to take its temperature_ , she remembers reading in a magazine once, but then how else is she supposed to know whether the blasted thing needs medical attention? "Are you all right?"

"Yeah."

A few seconds later: "Are you?"

"Sort of," Rose answers truthfully.

"Mm. I supposed that's better than _not at all_."

"Yeah."

Quiet falls around them once more. Rose wonders if she should do something to disrupt it, try to get the ball rolling again on this conversation, but something stops her and her words never make it out into the open. But just as she plans to let the talk die so they can both go back to pretending to sleep, the Doctor says, "Did you need something?"

"I dunno. Why?"

"Your breath keeps hitching like you're about to speak."

"Oi," says Rose, with a limp slamp to his arm. "Keep those creepy bat-ears to yourself."

"I'll have you know, my ears are perfectly proportional to the rest of me, in both sensory-perception and size."

"Definitely smaller than the last set," Rose teases.

Even in the dim light, she can see the Doctor wince at that.

"What's wrong?" Rose asks.

"Nothing."

"No, not nothing," Rose says, fighting the edge of impatience that threatens to creep into her voice. "Something. You can tell me what it is."

She pauses. "Please," she adds, as an afterthought.

"Eh, last time I shared my feelings, I ended up with a sort of metaphorical slap to the face."

"No, the _last_ time you shared your feelings, you ended up having sex."

The Doctor looks at her in surprise, and Rose's cheeks burn. "What?" she says, and maybe if she affects enough nonchalance, she'll actually feel it. "It happened. No use pretending it didn't."

"Well, that's sort of the problem, isn't it? Things happened, lots of things, complicated things, and now we've got to deal with them. And honestly, I'd rather just not."

"I don't know, seemed like you enjoyed it at the time."

He shoots her a dirty glance, and Rose smiles, cheekily, her tongue poking between her teeth.

"That's beside the point," the Doctor grumps, but Rose scoots closer to him anyway, close enough that she could easily bridge the distance between them with a kiss, if she wanted to. (And oh, does she want to.)

"Look, Doctor. There are two ways this can go," Rose tells him. "One: we move on, pretend we never talked, never fought, never kissed, or anything that came after, and eventually things go back to the way they were. Or two: we talk again, maybe we fight again a little, and eventually things go back to the way they were, except with kissing and sex sometimes."

"Rather presumptuous of you," replies the Doctor, arching an eyebrow, and Rose just laughs breathlessly and leans forward for a quick kiss.

"I like my odds," she murmurs against his mouth before kissing him again. For a second, she fears he'll freeze again, or pull away, but he quickly melts into it, shifting onto his side to improve the angle. Rose insinuates herself against him, delighting in how her curves mold to his planes, and he hums deep in his chest. God, it's been so long since anyone properly touched her—more than glancing contact during a courtly dance or getting dressed, anyway—that she's almost trembling with need, her body crying out for more.

"See?" Rose says, kissing him harder this time. "Talking doesn't always have to be miserable." She kisses his jaw, his throat. The Doctor swallows nervously against her mouth and she kisses him again, smiling. "I'm sure we can find ways to make it enjoyable, even."

"This feels like bribery," the Doctor sighs, even as one hand flies to her waist, anchoring Rose to him.

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

The Doctor's grip on her tightens. "There's a third way this could all play out, you know. Something you rather artfully neglected to mention earlier."

"And what's that?"

"One day—regardless of anything we do or don't do, or say or don't say—one day, you'll be gone."

Rose nods. "Better make the best of it, then, hadn't we?"

With a frustrated grunt, the Doctor pushes Rose onto her back, hovering over her. He ducks before their eyes have a chance to meet, kissing her fiercely before saying, "So what, we just run into this thing blindly and hope for the best? Ignore almost a millennium's worth of age difference, break down the walls with a battering-ram and overlook the debris, leave ourselves vulnerable and raw and exposed, form attachments that'll just make things hurt even worse when they break? Ruin each other anyway?"

"Something like that, yeah."

"Preposterous," the Doctor scoffs.

He kisses her again anyway.

* * *

"Doctor," Rose says, afterward, snuggling up against him. "Do you know what kept me awake at night, in France?"

"Rubbish 18th-century mattresses?"

"I couldn't stop thinking about the _what-ifs_ ," Rose continues, fingers playing idly with his necktie. "What if I had taken this opportunity or that, what if I'd said anything, what if I'd kissed you—what if I never got another chance? Long story short, it didn't matter whether we were in a _relationship_ or not, or if we were ever anything more than best mates—being away from you didn't hurt any less for it."

Her voice quiets. "You were still the only thing I wanted," she confesses, warmth painting her cheeks. "Still all I could think about."

At that the Doctor dips down to press a hard kiss to her mouth, as if he's punishing her for her words, or maybe rewarding her for them, Rose can't tell. He kisses her like he's drawing the air from her lungs, like he needs it to live; a possessive thing, it's all-consuming, an unspoken but fierce claim before he breaks the kiss with a gasp.

God, he's so beautiful, it's ridiculous.

Lazily, the Doctor draws back to look at her, brow furrowed, as if he's puzzling something out.

"What?" Rose asks, but he just lets out a suspicious _hm_. His eyes travel over Rose, surveying the expanse of her laid out before him, and suddenly she feels rather shy, her skin flushing everywhere his gaze touches as his eyes light on her still-heaving chest, her debauched hair, her legs only barely covered by her rumpled skirt. The Doctor shifts back and Rose worries that he'll leave again, take a scalding-hot shower to cleanse himself of this whole business and anyone associated with it, but he doesn't move from his spot on the bed; rather, he loosens and slips off his necktie, shucking his jacket after.

"Speaking of 18th-century mattresses," he says, and Rose quirks an eyebrow, because that is absolutely the last thing she expected to come out of his mouth right now. "Why don't you turn over?"

Rose blinks. "Huh?"

Rolling up his shirtsleeves, the Doctor smiles at her, the first genuine smile she's seen from him all day, and Rose lets herself relax a bit. "Just saying, it stands to reason that you might not have slept all that well while you were… _away_ ," he replies, and if Rose weren't paying attention, she almost could have missed the way his mouth tightens at the word. "Poor sleep can lead to all sorts of unfortunate side effects, including but certainly not limited to muscle tension and soreness. And as your primary care physician, it would hardly do if I let you suffer, would it?"

Staring at the Doctor's forearms beneath their rolled-up sleeves (god, they're just wrists and arms and hands, how do they manage to be so stupidly sexy?), Rose is sort of loathe to tear her eyes away, but she complies, rolling over onto her stomach. The moment she's settled, she's rewarded with a pair of hands pressed to her shoulders, rubbing firm circles against muscles she wasn't even aware were tense and sore. Discomfort flares dully beneath the Doctor's fingers, and Rose stiffens at first, but he soothes the hurt, only to bring it back and knead it away again. Slowly, Rose's muscles start to unwind, melting to near-liquid, soft and pliant. The Doctor's hands work their way downward, finding a particularly sore spot, and Rose moans as his fingers crush the pain away.

"Like that, do you?" he asks, and Rose can practically _hear_ his smirk. She foregoes replying in favor of nuzzling into her pillow as the Doctor's hands knead her discomfort away, alternating between firm strokes and soft, gentle pressure until Rose's muscles turn to jelly and she thinks she'll either fall asleep or seep into the mattress.

"So did you spend time as a massage therapist on some exotic planet or other," Rose asks, humming as his hands press stiffness out of her lower back, "or is this just another superior Time Lord talent thing?"

Chuckling, the Doctor kneads a little firmer, and Rose clamps down on a whine as discomfort flares through her, deliciously warm ease flooding back in its stead. "Neither," he replies. "But if you spend enough time learning the human or humanoid body, you pick up a few things. Maps of musculature and fascia, pressure points, areas where adhesions are likely to develop."

His hands work a trail up to her neck, his thumbs rubbing circles over muscles clustered in dense knots, and Rose sighs in relief. "After that," the Doctor continues, "it's just a matter of deducting what sort of pressure should be applied, and where."

At that, his hands slide around to her ribcage, ostensibly so his thumbs can iron out any pain beneath her shoulderblades, but it's impossible to miss how his fingertips glance against the sides of her breasts. The Doctor's hands grow bolder, skirting the neckline of her gown, and Rose's hands fist in the bedclothes, her thighs tensing.

"Should I stop?" the Doctor asks, voice quiet.

"Hmm-mm," Rose mumbles into her pillow, her cheeks and the tips of her ears growing pink and warm. The Doctor repeats the motion, his strokes firmer, until all Rose can think about is heat and friction between them again.

The Doctor's hands still, fingers settling against her dress. "I'd like to take this off, if you don't mind," he says softly.

"Please," she pants, scrambling upward, and everything becomes a tangle of limbs and clothes and wandering hands after that.

* * *

"You know," Rose says lazily, "if I didn't know any better, I'd think you were trying to distract me."

"Whatever from?" the Doctor asks, just a little too innocently.

"I could have sworn we were having a conversation, earlier."

"Ah, yes, the bribery," the Doctor agrees, kissing her shoulder. "I liked that bit, the bribery."

"I'm sure you did," Rose teases. "Just like any other bloke, you are."

The Doctor hesitates, opens his mouth as if he might speak. Decides against it.

"What is it? And don't go saying _nothing_ again," Rose warns when his lips part and she can just _see_ the word hovering between them.

"I'm not, though," he says with a frown. "Like other blokes, I mean. They die. I don't. I change. They don't."

 _Promises you adventure and then up and changes his personality on you_ echoes in Rose's ears, and she worries her lip between her teeth. "I told you I didn't mean—"

"Doesn't mean it isn't true."

"And am I really all that stupid, then?" Rose asks, anger flaring defensively. "Or selfish, or any of the nasty things you said?"

"We're all a little selfish," replies the Doctor. "But no, you're not stupid. Reckless, yes. Caring to the point of foolhardiness, certainly, at times. But no, not stupid. You should know that."

"It helps if people aren't regularly lobbing the word at you," Rose says quietly.

The Doctor glances up at her. "I know. I'm sorry."

Rose nods, softening. "Me, too. I shouldn't've…"

Swallowing hard around the lump in her throat, she looks away, ashamed. "I shouldn't've jumped through that window. I should've trusted you."

"And I shouldn't have made a complete ass of myself in France," the Doctor murmurs into her skin, kissing the silky skin beneath her jaw. "I let myself devolve into utter uselessness, wasting precious time. I should have found you faster, should never have brought you to that blasted ship to begin with, probably never should have taken you off the Estate at all—"

"Don't you dare say that," Rose says, her voice sharp. "You don't get to decide any of that for me. I don't want to be wrapped-up and packed away like something breakable."

"Even if that means—"

"Even if," Rose says stubbornly. "I just want to be with you."

"And I don't want you to get hurt," the Doctor snaps, avoiding Rose's gaze as he hovers over her. "I don't want the same thing to happen to you that happens to everything else I—"

He cuts himself off with a sharp inhale, eyes wild and unseeing as his chest heaves with caged-in words. Rose just watches him, mouth open in shock, her heart stuttering behind her ribs.

(It's the second time he's almost—surely he wasn't going to say—

What'll happen the day she slips up and says it to him?)

Before Rose can ask for the end of that sentence, the Doctor dips down to kiss her again, his mouth even more desperate than it was before, and Rose melts against him, fingers buried in his hair.

* * *

Afterward, the two of them lie side-by-side, just breathing in the dark.

"You all right?" the Doctor asks, and Rose is very glad to hear in the husky rasp of his voice that she's not the only one left winded and drained, if very pleasantly so.

Too tired for words, Rose nods, reaching for the Doctor. He gathers her into his arms, and she loops her arms around him, drawing him close. Even as numb as she is, the sensation of their bare skin pressed together might be the best thing Rose has ever felt, and she buries her face in his neck, exhaling slowly in contentment.

"Satisfactory?" the Doctor asks slyly, and Rose just laughs. As if he doesn't already know the answer.

"Ask me again when the feeling comes back to my legs," she teases.

The Doctor falls quiet, idly stroking her shoulder. "This doesn't…as nice as this all was, it doesn't change anything, you know," he says. "We still—"

"I know," Rose interrupts. "But we can figure it all out later, yeah? Right now, let's just bask."

The Doctor chuckles, with a rumble Rose can feel in his chest. "That good, eh?"

"Yes. Now shut up and let me sleep."

"Yes, ma'am."

The smugness in his voice would be unbearable if she didn't love him so bloody much.


	8. the bow

Pulling his robe close around him, Mickey shuffles down the corridor, stifling a yawn as he waves at other guests amidst the sounds of his grumbling stomach and his slippers _slip-slide-slapping_ over the floor. His empty stomach has compelled him to embark on a valiant (if a bit drowsy) quest to the dining hall, to discover whatever delightful assortment of extravagant ceremonial dishes the Temple has provided for breakfast—but first there's the matter of proper clothing, left behind in his haste to escape the Doctor's nonstop chattering.

God, he hopes the Doctor has already stepped out for the day. If he hears one more hint of conspiracy theories or hydrologic events or _ridiculously-prolonged_ _event durations, Mickey, it's just not meteorologically feasible!_ , he's going to scream so loudly the neighboring solar systems will hear him.

But probably Rose and the Doctor have both already eaten, or they're eating now, Mickey thinks. He imagines them quibbling over alien toast, or pointedly-not-talking-to-each-other while sipping their alien tea, or hurling snide quips at each other between mouthfuls of jiggly-faced alien eggs. Mickey rolls his eyes. Maybe he's lucky and they've already departed the hall, and he can avoid the teeth-gritting awkwardness and tension that keeps blossoming between them. Or maybe he'll just nab a plate of something and hide in his room until the storm passes. Both the literal and metaphorical storm, that is; the lightning and its violent cracks and splits in the dark sky overhead have got nothing on Rose and the Doctor's pointlessly stressful nonsense. _Why don't they just kill the tension and shag already?_ Mickey scoffs to himself as he pushes open his bedroom door.

Then his eyes widen as he takes in the scene in front of him and the irony of his last thought hits Mickey with all the subtlety of a slap to the face.

Like a hunter stalking wild game in the forest, Mickey's gaze follows a path of tracks, starting at the door in a cluster of shoes dropped pell-mell on the floor, his and hers mixed, leading up in a tangle of flung-off tuxedo jacket and jewelry and oxford and necktie and discarded bedclothes and women's underthings to the bed itself, canopy-curtains tossed aside to reveal two occupants lounging about within. The Doctor looks as rumpled as Mickey has ever seen him—more than, actually, Mickey's fairly certain he looked more composed in his post-regeneration coma—clad only in a tee shirt (hopelessly wrinkled) and his tuxedo trousers (even more wrinkled) and a pair of mismatched socks (has Mickey ever even _seen_ his socks?). His hair is a right mess, sticking up even more than usual, as if it's alarmed to find itself in such a state; it's an odd counterbalance to the Doctor's relaxed posture, leaning back against the headboard as he reads some book he procured from goodness-knows-where. And Rose—

Well, Rose is just naked and asleep. Not much else to be noted about that.

At least that answers the question of whether she and the Doctor have gone to breakfast yet.

Mickey's eyes flicker briefly over Rose's body, more out of confusion than anything. She's lying on her stomach, a duvet hastily half-tossed over her—did the Doctor hear Mickey coming and cover her up, he wonders? Because the Rose Mickey knows always kicks off her blankets halfway through the night whether she's clothed or not—so all her crucial bits are covered. (Not that Rose would particularly care if Mickey saw her in such a state anyway. _Nothing you haven't seen before_ , she's often said, with a shrug, while she changes right in front of him. Mickey, of course, will say nothing, but blushes furiously.)

Frowning, Mickey glances at the Doctor, a question forming on his lips. The Doctor shoots him an imperious look over his glasses. It's a challenge, Mickey thinks. _Go on. Say something. I dare you._ Mickey bristles at the thought.

But then he notices the way the Doctor's hands fidget with the book, fingers drumming quietly on the cover and sliding along the pages in a manner that Mickey would almost describe as _nervous_ , if he didn't know any better, and oh—this isn't some bullshit macho display after all. The Doctor doesn't plan to lock antlers. No, instead he's wary. _Waiting._ Like he's nervous about Mickey will react. Like he might even actually _care_ about Mickey reacts.

Wordlessly, Mickey scoops up his clothes, offering the Doctor a curt nod. The Doctor dips his head in reply, his shoulders visibly loosening, and Mickey turns to go. But upon reaching the door, Mickey has a second thought.

"You break her heart, I break your skull," he says to the door. He turns back round to hit the Doctor with his very best threatening glare. "Got it?"

"Fair enough," the Doctor replies evenly.

Mickey nods. "Damn right it is."

He eases the door shut behind him, quietly, in an effort not to disrupt Rose's sleep. Out in the hallway once again, Mickey expels a deep breath, leaning against the wall. A twinge of jealousy flares up somewhere in his chest, a tiny burning gnawing thing burrowing between his ribs. He closes his eyes and tries to will the hurt away.

Rose loves the Doctor. God help her, but for whatever reason, she loves him. And in his own strange way, maybe he loves her too. (Probably he loves her too, Mickey thinks with a grimace.) But as much as it stings, Mickey's not going to be the one to stand between them and their happiness.

Besides—it's high time he pursued some happiness of his own.

Eyes open, he pushes off the wall and heads back to the other room. Today's pursuit, he thinks, should begin with a little investigation into this whole missing-priest-conspiracy business. Might as well get in a little snooping while Rose and the Doctor are otherwise unoccupied, right? He's more than capable of doing things on his own, after all. Who knows, maybe he'll even solve a little mystery or two without them.

But first: breakfast.

* * *

Rose is not surprised to wake up and find the bed empty beside her.

She only allows herself a little disappointment. It isn't as if she expected anything different. The Doctor doesn't do domestic; he's made that quite clear. And this—waking up in a bloke's room, lying naked in his bed, _the morning after_ —it doesn't get any more domestic than this. Honestly, she'd have been more surprised if she'd awoken and he was still there. A few minutes of affection and attention and he's totally overwhelmed; he's sort of like a cat, that way. The humor of that comparison does not escape Rose.

Drinking in a deep yawn, Rose sits up and stretches, muscles straining satisfyingly against each other a thick early-morning haze, only to indulge in a great flop back on the mattress after, limbs cast out like a starfish or a child making a snow angel. A sleepy, contented sigh escapes her lips. She can't remember the last time she felt so well-rested, or the last time she was this pleasantly sore between the legs, for that matter.

But soon the itch to move (and perhaps more importantly, to scrub off an evening's-worth of body glitter and sweat and various other things) becomes overwhelming, so move she does, swinging her legs over the edge of the mattress so she can snatch the Doctor's abandoned tuxedo-shirt off the floor and pad over to the en suite for a shower. The water is deliciously hot, rolling over her hair and skin in soothing sheets, and Rose silently thanks her lucky stars that this planet has the gift of indoor plumbing. Good grief, but she'd missed her hot water in eighteenth-century France.

Lost in that odd timeless quality of a good shower, an unmarked bout of moments passes, Rose's thoughts suspending in sluggish liquid laziness. She curiously inspects the range of available soaps and cleansers, each likely intended for a different species, some of them sweet and fruity-smelling, some of them harsh and astringent, others earthy, the smell of dirt fresh and clean. Ultimately Rose settles for the bottle that smells most familiar and scrubs away makeup and sweat and sex and something uncomfortable that's haunted her skin ever since that jump through the mirror five and a half months ago, watching it all wash away down the drain in a swirl of suds and glitter. She dries herself off with a luxuriously fluffy towel, reveling in the glide of soft cotton fibers that brush over her like a kiss.

Just as Rose finds herself wishing for a toothbrush, she notices one lying on the bathroom counter, one that looks suspiciously like the stock the Doctor keeps in those bottomless pockets of his. Upon unwrapping it, the scent of Venusian spearmint floods her senses and she brushes her teeth with a grin that won't quite go away. It was an oddly considerate gesture on the Doctor's part—if a bit domestic, she thinks, her grin widening. After, she pulls on the Doctor's tuxedo-shirt and doesn't even bother with half the buttons before stepping back into the bedroom, humming at the surprise of crisp cool air against her still-damp skin.

"Blimey, took you long enough," mutters the Doctor, and Rose startles to find him in the room, back in his old suit, lounging on the bed and splayed over backward as if he flopped there out of sheer impatience. A plate of goodies sits next to him, its contents already picked-over and jostled by the Doctor's movement. "You just took a shower yesterday, how could you possibly already require such an extensive—"

His eyes find her and his words falter. His eyebrows knit together. He swallows.

"That's my shirt," the Doctor says flatly.

"Technically, it's the Temple's shirt, isn't it?" Rose replies, laughing as she plunks down next to him on the bed and plucks something warm off the breakfast plate. She's got no clue what it is, but it's salty and starchy and good. "And good morning to you, too, by the way."

"It's evening."

"The _hell_?" Rose peers out past the bed-canopy at the sky flashing overhead. Lightning cuts a bright white arc through the stormclouds, interrupting the inky darkness with patches of watery pink and red. It looks exactly the same as it did the night before, and the evening and the afternoon, for that matter. "How long was I asleep for?" Rose wonders.

"Fourteen hours and sixteen seconds," the Doctor replies. "Give or take a few seconds."

Rose laughs, raking a hand through the wet strands of her hair. The motion causes her shirt to ride up, exposing several inches of thigh that weren't exposed before, and if she hadn't been paying attention, Rose almost could have missed the way the Doctor's eyes flickered down to her legs before resuming their blank stare into nothingness.

Hiding a smile, Rose shifts, lying down on her side next to the Doctor. "So—" she starts to say, but immediately the Doctor springs up so quickly the mattress ripples in his wake.

"So anyway, just thought I'd check in after your endlessly long sleep session and even longer bath, see if you were up for a bit of nosing around—overheard a bit of gossip whilst I was pilfering nibbles, something about the cleaning room and the High Chauncery's personal chambers and strict orders to avoid each other at all costs, all _very_ promising, nothing says _conspiracy_ like refusing to let the staff do their job," the Doctor babbles, hands shoved firmly in his pockets as he slowly backpedals away. "Figured it merited a good checking-out if you were up for it, so I'll just leave you to eat and get dressed, shall I…?"

"Oh, god," Rose sighs. "Doctor, please don't tell me you're gonna be all weird about this."

" _Weird_?" the Doctor scoffs, mouth opening and closing ineffectually several times before any other noise decides to come out. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean. I'm being perfectly normal, thank you very much, and I rather resent the notion that I might be anything otherwise. I'm the picture of normal. The very portrait. The very realistic, well-lit, well-painted, brushed-by-Vermeer-himself portrait, thanks."

"Did Vermeer ever get all flustered about a woman wearing his shirt and nothing else?"

"I'm sure he did."

Then, after a pause, "…nothing else at all?"

"Let's find out," Rose says brightly, fingers flying down to her shirt-buttons.

Stammering, the Doctor darts over, stilling her hands with his. "Ah," he stutters, "as delightful as whatever you have in mind undoubtedly is—"

"And it is," Rose says with a grin.

"—with everyone else away at this evening's ceremonials, I was thinking this might be a good time to do a bit of investigating—"

"Mm-hmm."

"—or rather, you know. Poking around a bit."

Rose's eyes widen with mischief but the Doctor's hand claps over her mouth before anything salacious can escape it. "Good grief, is that all humans think about?" the Doctor laughs. "At the shops, down the pub, on the bus, _when's the next time I'll get to squish bits_?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

"It's a wonder the human race manages to get anything else accomplished."

"Pretty much, yeah," Rose agrees, voice muffled as she smiles against the Doctor's palm.

"Indeed. However, if we're going to get in any snooping this evening, we'd best hop to it, distraction-free. So, if I remove my hand," the Doctor says, fighting the smile that threatens to quirk the corners of his mouth, "will you promise to behave?"

Rose shakes her head no.

Sighing, the Doctor shifts back. "I suspected as much."

* * *

A few moments and nibbles and a fresh pair of trousers later (but still clad in the Doctor's borrowed shirt, because she'll be damned before she passes up any available opportunity to fluster him), Rose follows the Doctor through a series of chambers in the Temple, each one smaller and more round-walled than the last. But even amidst the air of conspiracy and subterfuge that lies heavy on them like a thick woolen cloak, pressing more and more urgently as they creep ever-closer to the Temple's heart, prompting them both to regularly swivel round on a sharp lookout for stray guards or Votaries, Rose feels lighter than she has in months.

"So tell me about this conspiracy," she says, idly glancing about the place as the Doctor scans orb after orb with the sonic. It isn't the library they visited the day before, but rather, a sort of private records-room, as the Doctor described it, but Rose will have to take his word for it; all she knows is that the orbs are white, they glow, and every time the Doctor takes a reading, he scowls afterward in impatience. "What do we know so far?" Rose continues, tabbing one of the globes.

The Doctor rolls his eyes, but he can't hide a grin. "Weren't you paying any attention yesterday?"

"Nope," Rose says brightly. "So gimme the scoop."

"Well, unfortunately there's not a whole lot to scoop so far, I'm afraid," the Doctor explains, setting down one orb with a huff only to pluck up another. "Just a few frustrating questions, none of which have any apparent answer."

"Being?"

"Why is the Allstorm suddenly so long, why are there so many foreign guests in attendance for what should be a cozy local religious ritual, and why has our Most Grant and Generous Host up and disappeared into the ether?"

"And you suspect that something big and bad's to blame, and we've got to stop it."

"Well." The Doctor shoots her a glance over his spectacles. "Don't we?"

Shrugging, Rose picks up one of the orbs to judge for herself. "Sure. Yeah. Maybe."

The Doctor piques an eyebrow in question.

"You're probably right," Rose says. "I'm sure your Spidey-senses are tingling for a reason."

"Yours aren't?"

"Eh, I dunno. The missing host is fishy for sure, and I don't know much about storms, but as far as the international guest list goes…" Rose hands her orb to the Doctor with another shrug. "I'm probably still just stuck a bit in the 1700's is all. They'd celebrate anything, they would. And I mean _anything._ One time Reinette threw a party cos she got some new porcelain. She threw a party for a bloody set of _dinner plates_."

"Aw, come on, Rose. The birth of the infamous celestial blue underglaze is worth at least a little bit of a hootenanny, isn't it?"

"No," replies Rose stubbornly. "And if I never hear the phrase _bleu céleste_ again, it'll be too soon."

Chuckling, the Doctor turns back to his orb, his spectacles alternately flashing blue with the light of the sonic and electric-white from the lightning arcing overhead. "So your theory is that the guests are here just because they're poncy and rich, and poncy rich folk will leap at any chance to party?"

"More or less."

"Not a bad thought. Got any ideas about the other two-thirds of our problem?"

"If you're forced to stay here for a whole month without a mystery to solve, you'll go mad?"

"Cheeky," says the Doctor, the corner of his mouth quirked in amusement as he scans a new globe. "Was that terribly fashionable in the French court? The cheekiness?"

"Oh, Louis absolutely adored it," Rose says with a wink.

"I'll bet he did," mutters the Doctor.

Rose smiles. Something about this—the investigating, the banter, the still-familiarity of it all even after half a year away, the Doctor's intense concentration written in the crease of his brow over those stupidly sexy specs of his—something about it all just makes Rose want to hug him, throw her arms around him and squeeze tight. Maybe kiss him, and see where that takes them. But before she has the chance to enact any part of her plan, the Doctor looks up at her over his specs again, eyebrow arched sharply as he says, "Can I help you?"

Rose shakes herself. "Sorry?"

"You're staring."

Rose begs herself not to blush. "Yeah? So?"

"Why are you staring?"

"I dunno. Just thinking about…things."

"What things?"

"Just…things."

"Because we haven't got the time for canoodling right now, you know."

Laughing, Rose shakes her head, willing the redness in her cheeks to die down. " _Canoodling_? God, you really are old."

"How's that?"

"Cos only old fogies say stuff like that anymore. And for your information, I wasn't thinking about anything like that at all."

"Really?"

"Really," says Rose stubbornly. "Cos y'know, that was just a joke earlier, humans thinking about sex all the time. Despite what you may think, not everything revolves around you and, you know, _canoodling_ or whatever—"

But her words are cut off by a tap behind the far wall, resounding through the room, and the Doctor stiffens in response, his head snapping to at the noise. It takes Rose approximately half a second to realize that's one of those invisible-door-opening taps. They're about to be discovered, and despite Uruud and the other Votaries' claims of hospitality, Rose knows that this is one of the few places they won't be welcome in.

"Oi!" shouts the guard as they step through the magic doorway, shining a light on Rose and the Doctor, freezing them both like a pair of deer in headlights. "Oi, you two! Guests aren't permitted in here!"

"Right," says the Doctor, stepping in front of Rose and the table full of scattered globes, shielding them all from view. "Of course. We're so sorry, complete misunderstanding—"

"What are you doing in here?" the guard asks suspiciously.

"Canoodling?" Rose offers.

"We got lost," the Doctor says quickly, stepping to the side to block the guard's view as he tries to peer around him at Rose and the orbs. "We got lost looking for a place to—erm—"

"Canoodle," Rose supplies, kicking herself.

"—and, well, nothing gets a human girl all hot and bothered like a roomful of private records, does it?" the Doctor laughs weakly.

The guard looks from the Doctor, around to Rose behind him, down at the misplaced globes surrounding Rose, back to the Doctor again. He does not look convinced.

"Sorry, but I think I'm going to have to take you in," says the guard, reaching for something behind his back. _A weapon_ , Rose thinks, and she freezes.

"And that's our cue," says the Doctor, grabbing Rose by the hand. "Time to run!"

Fingers cinched tightly round hers, the Doctor sprints through the records-room past rows and rows of glowing orbs, pulling Rose along for the ride as the guard chases after. Rose runs as fast as her legs can take her, neglected muscles tensing and complaining after months of sedentary stillness, but even amidst that, Rose is grinning like a madwoman, because she's missed all of this, _god_ has she ever missed it. She stifles a laugh as they run from one chamber to another to another, past columns and pools and guests, the guard close on their heels, adrenaline pumping like hypercharged jet fuel through Rose's veins.

"Really, Doctor," she laughs breathlessly as they run. " _Nothing gets a girl all hot and bothered like a room full of records_?"

"What's that you said about _canoodling_?" the Doctor shoots back.

"I panicked!"

"Yes, that much is evident!"

The Doctor pulls Rose through chamber after chamber and the guard doesn't lose sight of them once, his footfalls dogging them every step of the way. Fear and excitement braiding themselves together in Rose's gut, she clings to the Doctor's hand all that much harder, secretly relishing the mad rush of it all.

"Here," announces the Doctor as they arrive at a huge curved wall, and a rap of his knuckles opens a doorway into one of the great halls, full to the rafters with guests and celebrants swirling about the place in some sort of ceremonial dance. Ducking beneath the wings of a large feathered guest, the Doctor draws Rose into the teeming crowd, away from the prying eyes of their pursuer. Once inside, Rose marvels at the sight all around them, celebrants moving and swaying to the ritualistic and rhythmic beating of drums pulsing beneath the soft flutter of winds and strings. The music swells and expands to fill the room, suffocating even the thought of space, cleaving to the dancers and adherents with an almost intoxicating closeness, leaving Rose dizzy as the drumbeat marches to the beat of her own hammering pulse. The celebrants surrounding her pull her in like an undercurrent, dancing to the beat in an elegant amoebic mass spinning and swirling beneath the lightning-split sky.

"Shall we dance?" Rose teases, half-expecting the Doctor to roll his eyes and snark at her again, but to her surprise, he nods. "Camouflage. Good thinking," he says, pocketing his specs before stepping directly into the stream of guests, pulling Rose close.

Funny—Rose had sort of thought, when she'd ever allowed herself to think of such things, that if she and the Doctor ever transcended their unspoken boundary of clasped hands and too-tight hugs, then all that ever-present chemistry burning between them might fizzle out, doused like a candle at evening's end. Not a bad thing, that; candles can't burn forever, and when their spark has reduced to a gentle smolder, one can safely go to bed with a sense of ease and contentment, curling up for a comfortable and well-earned sleep. But with one of his hands guiding her round, the other clasping her close by the waist, pulling her chest against his, packing them both together so tightly she can feel each and every breath as it enters and leaves his body, it becomes apparent that no, that flame was not extinguished, it's burning bright as ever, and probably has no chance of doing otherwise anytime soon. At least that would explain why Rose feels so warm all of a sudden, why her cheeks can't seem to stop burning.

The Doctor spins her in time with dozens of other celebrants, elegantly following the steps of the dance as he scans the room for their pursuer, his glance aloof and oh-so-carefully casual. Distantly, Rose wonders whether he already knows this ritual dance or if he's just stupidly good at improvising; presently, she's too busy being distracted by the proximity of their bodies and the feel of his hands on her again to register much of anything else. She faces him again, pressed close once again, and he offers a grin. "Hello," he says, and Rose remembers a similar sequence from before, a galaxy and a year ago. Almost feels like a lifetime, now.

"Hello," she replies, a smile blossoming slow and sweet across her lips. She's got no clue what steps she should be following right now but at least her time at court taught her how to fake it 'til she makes it, if nothing else; she follows the Doctor's lead with relative ease, laughing when she falters and her feet skip a beat along with her pulse. "Seem to be doing a lot of this lately, don't we?"

"What, watching for guards while we stumble over our own feet?"

"Dancing, you great prat," Rose laughs. A change in tempo means time to change partners and Rose switches off with a flourish, grinning disarmingly at the large rhinoceros-creature that glowers at her before taking her hand. (Though to be fair, Rose actually hasn't got a clue whether it's specifically shooting daggers at her, as _glower_ seems to be the creature's default state.) She twirls back into the Doctor's arms afterward and there it is again, that heat, that electricity; the lightning flashing overhead has got nothing on the connection burning and buzzing between the two of them, Rose thinks.

"It's nice," she admits, her fingers nervously edging upward to fiddle with the lapels of his suit-jacket. "The dancing, I mean. We should do it more."

The Doctor hums noncommittally.

"You don't think so?"

"I don't particularly think one way or the other, at the moment. I'm more preoccupied with our guard friend and wherever he might happen to be. I've sort of lost sight of him."

"Right," says Rose, nodding. There are other things at hand. Big things. Important things. Much bigger, more important things than the press of their bodies together, warm and close, soft and tense all at once, their clothes whispering against each other as they move, leaving Rose practically vibrating with anticipation, reminding her in full technicolor detail of everything they got up to the night before, his hands slipping beneath her dress, his lips on hers, skin against skin—

"It can't happen again, you know."

Shaking herself, Rose frowns. "Sorry?"

"Last night. What we did, what we said. It can't happen again."

"How did you know—you didn't read my mind or something, did you?" Rose asks, startled.

The Doctor shakes his head. "Didn't have to."

"All right, I get it," Rose sighs. "I know you like to tease about that sort of thing, humans and their silly animal instincts and all, but it only makes sense that it's on my mind, Doctor. It only just happened last night. It's not like I'm some crazed addict—not like it's really the only thing I ever think about."

"It's on my mind too, Rose."

"Oh." Her cheeks reddening, Rose considers the implications of that, wonders what he's thinking, if his recollections are anything as vivid as hers, what else is going through his mind right now. "Then…why?"

"As lovely as it might have been, it was ill-advised at best, dangerous at worst," the Doctor explains, still scanning the room, and now Rose suspects he's just using their pursuer as a convenient excuse to avoid looking at her. "And it's dangerous precisely _because_ it's on my mind. It's a distraction, and we can't afford distractions. That's how we end up in the predicament we're in right now—it's how things get overlooked, mistakes get made, people get hurt."

Rose stops in her tracks, staring at him as the crowd bustles and sways around them; the Doctor stops as well, hands moving back to the safety of his own body, depositing themselves firmly in his pockets. "I'm sorry," he says softly. "I know it's not what you want to hear. I don't particularly like saying it. If I had my way, we'd just pretend it never happened. I'm only saying anything now because, well, it seems prudent, and only fair in light of everything, to make certain my stance on the subject is clear."

"And what about my stance on the subject?" Rose asks with a disbelieving laugh.

"It's just a bad idea, Rose. You know it is."

"No, I don't," Rose insists, crossing her arms protectively. "I don't know that. Last night—"

"I just said last night was ill-advised."

"You're wrong," says Rose. "You're wrong about this whole thing. Cos you're not worried about hurting other people. You're worried about yourself."

Frowning, the Doctor opens his mouth to protest, but Rose cuts him off with a hand wrapped round his arm, pulling him off to the side so they're no longer buffeted by dancers and music and other things pounding mercilessly on their senses. Once they're safely ensconced in a semi-private alcove, Rose sighs.

"Look, I know you're lonely," she says, and it hurts for the words to leave her mouth, almost as much, she thinks, as it hurts for him to hear them. "And I know that's the biggest reason you keep any of us around. To fill the quiet. To make the universe seem new and bright again. To not feel so lonely anymore."

The Doctor's mouth twists unhappily and Rose has to force herself to continue. "And I'm happy to do that for you, I really am," she says. "And if this is truly as far as you want things to go between the two of us, then that's fine. If that's what you really want and need, that's fine. I won't push you. But the thing is, it doesn't seem like that's true. It's more like, you want things, but you think you shouldn't have them. Like you don't deserve them."

The Doctor fidgets uncomfortably and Rose bites her lip in worry. Things were going so well just moments before—how did they end up back here, how are things already so tense and strained again? Not that she expected sex to really resolve anything, but last night, it had seemed like things were at least edging toward improvement. Why do they keep talking and working only to circle back round to the same bleak conclusion?

Well, while she's pushing things, she might as well push all the way. No point in holding back, now.

"It isn't just about the sex," Rose says, and goodness, but she's really blushing now. "But you do all these things—you make us feel special, like we're exceptional, like we're these bright spots you were so, so happy to find, and then on a dime, you turn right back around and make us feel like the lowest, smallest beings in the universe. You take us with you on these amazing adventures, and then when you're done with us, you leave us behind. You pull us near only to run away when you realize just how close we're getting. And we don't get any say in the matter—when you're done, you're just _done._ And it hurts, Doctor, and it pushes people away. It's only going to make you lonelier in the end."

"You haven't got a clue what it's like to be truly alone," the Doctor replies quietly.

"No, I don't," Rose agrees. "And I wish you didn't either. Because _you don't have to_."

Wordlessly, the Doctor looks up and away, at anything in the room but her; Rose steps closer, reaching up to place a gentle hand on his cheek, a soft and undemanding plea for him to face her again.

"You help so many people," she says. "Why won't you let anyone help you?"

"I don't need it," the Doctor replies.

Rose arches an eyebrow in disbelief.

"Actually, I've changed my mind," says the Doctor, pulling away so he can rock back on his heels. "I've got a definitive opinion on dancing after all. You're right, it's lovely, we should do it more. Starting right now. Right resolutely now, in case our little guard friend comes back to look for us again. Shall we?"

"How do you really feel about Reinette?" Rose asks, before she has a chance to talk herself out of it.

Now the Doctor stares at her. "What?"

"You heard me."

"Why are you asking about her again?"

"I want to know."

"Does it matter?" he asks incredulously.

"It does to me."

"Why on earth should it?"

"It just does."

Casting about in disbelief, the Doctor scowls. "Fine. What do you want me to say—that I'm drawn to clever, accomplished people? I'm fascinated with them? That I admire talent and beauty and generally impressive people and places and things whenever and wherever I might find them? It's all true, I won't deny it, never have. And I don't think I have to apologize for it, either."

"Do you love her?"

The Doctor scoffs. "Really, of all the reductive and oversimplified things—and a ridiculous notion to boot," he says, looking at Rose with that horrible _you've just dribbled on your shirt_ look, the one that suggests he's very displeased with her for exposing him to her silly brain and its silly limited capabilities. "It's an impossible question to answer by your standards, because love means too many things for humans. You love your parents and your family and your friends, certainly, but you also love your dog and your favorite ice cream flavor and the latest big thing on telly. You love fashion and science and sleeping in to ungodly hours and apparently pestering me with idiotic questions. The word _love_ means everything, therefore it means nothing. It's a useless platitude, a saccharine sentimentalism invented purely for the sake of films and fairy tales and song lyrics sugary enough to give you a dozen cavities."

"Cool," says Rose drily, because when the defensive cynicism comes out in full force, that's how she knows she's really getting somewhere. "So are you gonna answer my question, or haven't you got all of the usual insults out of your system yet?"

"No," he says, throwing up his hands in defeat. "That's your answer, all right? _No_. Fascination and admiration and even infatuation don't automatically add up to love, and if you think they do, then you should reexamine your maths. And you'll just have to forgive me if I don't conform to your _very human standards_ of what fondness and caring and romance should look like—I'm sorry I'm not in the habit of vomiting out my feelings at every available opportunity, or opening myself up to things that will only amount to a horrendous amount of pain in the end, or carving off chunks of myself to give to people left and right until there's nothing left of me, nothing, nothing at all. I'm sorry. All right? And that's it, that's all I'm going to say on the matter, I'm done, Rose, I'm officially _done_."

"Okay," replies Rose.

Wide-eyed and staring, the Doctor blinks in surprise. " _Okay_? So that's it? We can drop this now, move on?"

"Yeah."

"Really?" he asks suspiciously.

"Really. I learned everything I need to know."

"And what's that?"

"You're a coward."

The Doctor doesn't reply, just watches her sharply, brow furrowed in frustration and hurt.

"You can deny yourself all you want, hiding behind the whole _curse of the Time Lords_ business or your self-righteous self-martyrdom or your magnificent higher calling or whatever other noble-sounding excuse you want to come up with," Rose continues, offering a sad little smile. "But at the end of the day, really, I think you're just afraid to be happy."

"Oh, come on now, that's just—"

"It's like you think you don't deserve it cos you had to make some impossible decisions, like joy is some kind of zero-sum game and anything good you might have is taking joy away from someone else somehow, or like you think the universe will punish you or something, and—and honestly, how self-centered _is_ all that, anyway?—but, just, look. Is this something you want, or not?" asks Rose, exasperated. "Just tell me honestly. If you don't want us to be anything more, if you're happiest with us just being mates, that's all right. I'll respect your wishes. _If that's what you really want_."

"It doesn't really matter what I want," the Doctor mutters.

"Of course it does," insists Rose. "Doctor—do you think that way about anyone else? Would you ever tell someone else that how they feel doesn't matter?"

Again he doesn't reply.

"What about me?" Rose tries again. "Do my feelings matter? Do you want me to be happy?"

"Of course. Don't be ridiculous."

"Well, I want you to be happy," Rose replies stubbornly. "It would make me happy to see you get what you want. Even if it's not exactly the same thing I want. You deserve happiness as much as anyone else. It would make me very happy for you to know that. Yeah?"

Staring at her in dumbstruck silence, the Doctor swallows hard. His gaze shifts uncomfortably elsewhere, a hand carding through his hair as he considers—what he's considering, Rose doesn't know, but she worries about his next words, whether he's weighing them, perhaps measuring the potential damage of them.

Rose hides a sigh of disappointment. It's all too much for him, probably. She's pushing him too much. She's being unfair. This is too much to expect of him.

She can't ask him to feel the same way she does.

"Look, Doctor. I just—" Rose starts to say, but he cuts her off with a hug, enveloping her in an embrace so tight it squeezes the breath right out of her. Her arms return the gesture on instinct, instantly wrapping round his waist and drawing the rest of her near so her face can burrow against his chest, her arms resting snugly against the small of his back. His double heartsbeat taps a reassuring rhythm beneath her cheek, _thump-thump_ , _thump-thump_ , _thump-thump_ , and Rose relaxes a little, sighing in relief. Probably this is among the Doctor's many hidden talents and gifts, this magical ability to hug and squeeze everything bad out of her until she's left with nothing but quiet contentment. Or maybe that's just how it feels anytime someone really needs an embrace and receives it. Either way, it's a really fucking good hug.

"It's not that simple," the Doctor says softly. "But…thank you for saying it, anyway. It means a lot."

"Yeah. I love you, you know."

Her pulse racing in her ears, Rose's voice is so small she thinks the Doctor might not even hear it—and maybe that would be just as well, anyway—but he stiffens, nodding. "I know," he says quietly.

Stepping back, the Doctor casts his gaze downward, struggling to meet her eyes. "Rose, I—"

"Rose!"

On reflex, Rose's head jerks at the sound of Mickey calling her name; she still watches the Doctor, waiting for whatever he was going to say, but his attention has already shifted, his focus switching in a millisecond.

Rose curses Mickey's terrible timing. _What was the Doctor going to say?_

With a frustrated sigh, Rose turns to see Mickey swimming toward them through the crowd, Naami following close behind.

"Rose, we've done it!" Mickey says excitedly. "We've figured it out!"

"Figured what out?" asks Rose, lost.

"The conspiracy!" replies Mickey in hushed tones, glancing all about the chamber to ensure no one overhears. "The Doctor was right, something's going on, but it's not what you think—Naami, tell them!"

Naami nods, her face lit up in an eager grin. "So the High Chauncery hasn't been seen in years, it's true, but that actually isn't too uncommon in his line of work, right?" she says, glancing from Rose to the Doctor and back. "As you know, Therran High Priests are renowned galaxywide for their scholarship and piety—"

"Of course we all knew that!" Mickey laughs nervously.

"—so of course, none of us ever questioned it. Priests might retreat into study at any time, for any reason, and they could be gone for any number of weeks or months or even, as in this case, years. But after the Doctor's remarks on the High Chauncery's absence, I thought I might ask round with some of my connections, just out of curiosity. We're involved in imports, you see, so if the High Chauncery was bringing in new materials for study, then we'd be the first to know. But that's just the thing—he hasn't ordered any sort of religious texts for years now."

"Because it turns out someone murdered him unceremoniously?" asks the Doctor.

"What? Of course not!" laughs Naami, daintily shielding her mouth with her hand. " _Murder_? Don't be absurd!"

"Well, all right, then," says the Doctor, nonplussed. "That's unexpected. But certainly not unwelcome."

"A nice change from the usual," Rose adds.

"True, a very nice change."

"That's not the interesting thing, though! Tell them about the interesting thing, tell them what the High Chauncypants keeps bringing in," urges Mickey.

Leaning in close, and whispering in a hushed tone, conspiratorial, like anyone around them might hear and gasp in shock, Naami tells them, "Giant mirrors, boatloads of argon, and silver iodide."

Rose and the Doctor both blink in confusion. That's not at all what Rose had expected to hear. She was thinking something more along the lines of illicit beasts or exotic drugs or, heck, at least some kind of rare spice. But this…this just sounds like a silly school science experiment, and honestly, after everything, that's a little bit of a letdown.

"Oh, no," says Rose awkwardly, glancing at Mickey with a shrug. "Not that stuff!"

She leans close to the Doctor to whisper, "What is that stuff?"

"Well, if I didn't know any better, I'd say someone was building a big laser," says the Doctor, frowning. "But I'm not certain how the silver iodide factors in, unless—"

"That's them, over there!" a voice shouts over the din, and Rose turns at the noise to see their pursuer hovering at the edge of the crowd, pointing at her and the Doctor. Their single guard has been joined by several others, now, all of them staring in their direction. Staring, and grimacing, and brandishing a host of dangerous-looking, pointy weapons.

 _So much for that famous hospitality_ , Rose thinks with a gulp.

"Get them!" commands the guard.

"Split up!" Rose shouts as she pushes Mickey away with one hand, grabs the Doctor with another. Pulling the Doctor along, she bolts through the teeming crowd, ducking beneath arms and tentacles and wings; a glance back tells her that Mickey and Naami, though startled, have taken off running in the opposite direction. A half-dozen guards bridge the gap between them, shouting at the dancing celebrants to disperse as they break off to chase each pair.

"Here!" says Rose, pulling the Doctor between two huge elephantine aliens that sway to and fro over the floor, distracted both by the music and the guards' continuous shouting. The guards struggle to catch up, stopped at every turn by errant celebrants and guests milling about the place in confusion, but after a lifetime of navigating London's busy and tourist-filled streets, Rose has no problem weaving in and out of the throng, spotting a good-sized gap here, a narrow-but-tenable squeeze there. Before too long she's drawn the Doctor out of the main hall and into a side corridor, their feet slapping hard against the marble floor as they sprint away from their pursuers.

"Not that way!" shouts the Doctor as they round a corner only to find more guards, and he yanks Rose off in another direction, guiding them both by the grace of his eidetic memory. They weave in and out of chamber after chamber, back through the dining hall and the menagerie and the pools and the garden, past shocked celebrants and shrieking animals and churning waters, lightning violently splitting the sky overhead as they run and their pursuers close in.

"What'll happen if they catch us?" Rose gasps, throwing a look over her shoulder at the guards and their many, many weapons. And right at that second, as if someone was only waiting for her to ask, a shrill squeal fills the air and suddenly the Doctor is yanking Rose to the side just in time to avoid a barrage of blaster-fire, smacking the wall right beside her and leaving a smoldering crater behind in its wake. Rose lets out a cry as blaster fire rings out all around them, exploding the walls all around and the floor at their feet, filling the air with smoke and shrapnel. Another barrage of fire and Rose feels a beam graze her shirt, its scalding heat missing her skin by mere millimeters.

Heart hammering, air burning in her lungs, Rose wills her legs to run faster.

They sprint round another curve only to reach a dead end. The Doctor halts in his tracks, his grip tightening round Rose's hand as they both skid over the floor. Rose watches as the Doctor whips back round to face the guards, glances back at the dead end in front of them, brow furrowing as he frantically tries to calculate.

Oh, god. That face. It's been six months but Rose still recognizes that face. It's the Doctor's _we're gonna have to do something supremely stupid and hope for the best_ face. His _we might die, but then again, we might not_ face.

"Doctor—" Rose starts to say, but, jaw set in determination, he doesn't say anything, just takes off again for the far wall, yanking Rose along with him.

"No!" shout the guards behind them, their voices high and shrill over their clattering boots and firing blasters. " _Halt_!"

They reach the wall and Doctor raps a desperate beat against it until it springs open, a doorway parting to reveal a tempest of howling winds and punishing rains roaring loud enough to drown even the sounds of blaster fire all around them. Water and hail scream down in sheets, buffeted by the winds and hammering against the ground like shards of glass on pavement. Thunder pounding relentlessly overhead, the pitch black of the sky and the air are illuminated only by the beams of light piercing the sky, flooding the world in a flash of blinding-white and blood-red.

 _The Allstorm_ , Rose realizes, and she shrinks back in fear. She opens her mouth to plead with the Doctor, but terror has crept up her throat and stolen her words.

Pausing only long enough to steel himself with a steadying breath, the Doctor steps through the door, and Rose follows him into the storm.


End file.
